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COPYR[GHT DEPOSIT. 



THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 
OP THE WORLD 



BY 

WILLIAM f: ro BISON, S.J. 

St. Louia University 



B. HERDER BOOK CO. 
17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo. 

and 

68 Great Russell St., London, W. C. 

1919 



-i$\ b 



IMPRIMI POTEST V s 

Sti. Ludovici, die 6. Augusti, 1919 

F. X. McMenamy, S. J., 
Praepositu8 Provincialis 

Prov. Missour. 



NIHIL 0B8TAT 
Sti. Ludovici, die 13. Augusti, 1919 

F. O. Holweck, 
Censor Librorum 



IMPRIMATUR 
Sti. Ludovioi, die Ik- Augusti, 1919 

^Joannes J. Glennon, 

Archiepiscopus 

Sti. Ludovici 



Copyright, 1919 

by 

Joseph Gummersbach 

All rights reserved 

Printed in U. S. A. 

VAIL-BALLCU COMPANY 



CI.A536978 



TO 

THE LOVERS 

OF THE CRUCIFIED 



FOKEWOKD 

The following pages contain a series of 
Lenten Lectures, delivered in St. Francis 
Xavier (College) Church during the season 
of 1919. In them an attempt has been made 
to tell the story of the sorrows and suffer- 
ings of Jesus Christ in a way as near to ac- 
tual fact as possible. Of course, the gospel 
narrative has been carefully pondered ; and 
recourse has been had to standard works, 
such as Ollivier's The Passion, Gallwey's 
The Watches of the Passion, Knabenbauer's 
Commentary in Gursus Sacrae Scripturae, 
and the like. 

The subject of the Passion is inexhaust- 
ible. "Oh, Beauty, ever ancient, ever 
new!" was Augustine's cry of wonder as he 
looked up to the heights of God's excellence : 
a similar exclamation must spring to the 
lips of everyone who searches the depths of 
the Savior's Heart, which was riven on the 
cross. The Passion, from its soundless 
abyss, is always appealing to each Christian 
heart and calling forth the response of no- 



vi FOREWORD 

bility and love. There is a strange, en- 
thralling power in the memory of the sor- 
rows of loved ones : the heart goes back most 
frequently to the scenes of sadness where 
dear ones have suffered, and holds fast to 
the bitter-sweet myrrh of their affliction. 
It is thus that the appreciative souls of the 
best of the race have yearningly lingered 
over the woes of the great Beloved of God 
and man. 

Besides being the story of His sacrifice 
of redemption, the Passion of our Blessed 
Lord is also a type of the conflict between 
good and evil. The forces of wickedness 
may be regarded as symbolized in the figures 
of those who outraged Jesus Christ during 
the hour of the power of darkness. These 
forces have never ceased from their ruinous 
work in opposition to the Savior and to His 
Kingdom: and so, the tragedy of Calvary 
is unendingly continued in the Undying 
Tragedy of the World. 

Now that men are facing a period of re- 
organization and reconstruction after the 
disasters of the stupendous world-war, it is, 
in the opinion of the author, especially 
timely to study well the adverse powers 



FOREWORD vii 

which have part in the gigantic contest be- 
tween good and evil. 

The greatest effort of all good men must 
ever be to stand for Christ and godliness. 
To this end the knowledge of the purpose 
and of the resources of the enemy is an aid 
to victory; hence, this study of evil. The 
motive power towards generosity in regard 
to God is the enthusiasm of love ; hence, this 
sympathetic review of that excess of love 
accomplished in Jerusalem, when the God- 
Man, "having loved his own who were in 
the world, loved them unto the end." 1 

It is in the hope that the old, old story of 
Christ's supreme love may kindle the ardor 
of Christian hearts to fight and conquer 
their foes and His, that these pages are given 
to the public. These humble efforts are laid 
as a tribute at the feet of Him whose Heart 
"has loved men so much that it has spared 
nothing, even to emptying itself, to show 
them its love." 

William F. Robison, S.J. 

St. Louis University, 

Feast of the Sacred Heart, 

June 27, 1919. 

i John XIII, 1. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 
FOEEWOED . . V 

CHAPTEB 

I Judas and Disloyalty ...... 1 

II The Sanhedeim and Duplicity . . > . 36 

III Pilate and Time-Seeying 71 

IV Heeod and Lust 107 

V The Soldiees and Ceuelty . . . ■. . 142 

VI The People and Apostasy 175 



THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

CHAPTER I 

JUDAS AND DISLOYALTY 

"What will you give me, and I will deliver him 
unto you?" Matt. XXVI, 15. 

"And he that betrayed him, gave them a sign, say- 
ing: Whomsoever I shall kiss, that is he." Matt. 
XXVI, 48. 

' « Hail Rabbi. And he kissed him. ' ' Matt. XXVI, 
49. 

"It were better for him, if that man had not been 
born." Matt. XXVI, 24. 

The special attention which Mother 
Church pays to the Passion of our Blessed 
Lord is a well known fact. She begins her 
religious functions with the sacred sign of 
the cross marking her brow and signing the 
foreheads of her children. She blesses the 
objects that are set aside for holy purposes 
by tracing above them the same hallowed 
symbol. She crowns the spires of her 
temples of worship with this august 



2 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

standard of her King and Spouse. And 
the cross is the epitome of the Passion. 

Yet,- whilst with its salutary warning 
against evil and its heavenly call to good- 
ness of life the Passion always lives in her 
heart; whilst in her grateful memory it 
throbs with the endless thrill of apprecia- 
tive love ; during the holy season of Lent she 
broods over it, as a beloved broods over the 
memory of her battle-scarred lover. She 
counts each wound, she lingers over each 
bruise received in her behalf; for they are 
the marks of her Bridegroom's heroism, the 
tokens of His fidelity and unselfishness. 
During this hallowed time of penance and 
prayer the Church summons her children 
to tread with her more frequently and more 
lovingly than at other times the sad Way 
of the Cross; she closes this period with 
the veiling of statues and crucifixes; and 
she relives the days of monstrous hate and 
immeasurable love, as Holy Week's lamen- 
tations precede the Easter alleluias. Until 
lately it was her wont to celebrate during 
Lent different feasts of the Passion and of 
the instruments of her Spouse's sufferings; 
and, even though some of these feasts have 



DISLOYALTY 3 

been superseded in her liturgy, the spirit of 
her loving remembrance remains, and she 
wishes the whole of Lent to be an extended 
Holy Week for all who love the Christ. 

In a certain sense, she wishes the whole 
year and one's whole life to be a prolonged 
Lent, in so far as the memory of the Passion 
should never fade from the heart's grateful 
recollection. Her daily Mass is the unfail- 
ing memorial of the sacrifice of Calvary; 
her unflagging lesson is the sermon of the 
cross. She knows and proclaims this truth : 
" Surely if there had been anything better 
and more useful to the salvation of man than 
suffering, Christ would certainly have 
shown it by word and example." 1 

The record of the Passion of our Blessed 
Lord is not only the story of His suffer- 
ings of redeeming love ; it is also the symbol 
of the Undying Tragedy of the World, the 
type of the struggle of the forces of evil 
against good and God. Christ fought all 
the powers of sin and hell, and He con- 
quered in His " triumph of failure." But 
the evil that was killed on Calvary when He 
won His stupendous victory has its unholy 

i Imitation of Christ, Bk. II, c. 12. 



4 THE UNDYING TBAGEDY 

resurrection in the heart of every man and 
woman who treads the paths of this life. 
Unto the crack of doom the struggle will go 
on, with the power of wickedness weakened, 
but never absolutely vanquished until the 
day of God's supreme triumph in His Gen- 
eral Judgment. Then God will conquer ir- 
resistibly and the adverse forces will be 
crushed unto everlasting. But meanwhile, 
into the lives of each of us there rush the 
fierce onsets of the struggle for our souls, 
which are the prize, as they are the battle- 
ground, of this terrible contest between 
Satan and Christ; in our lives there is again 
enacted upon a smaller stage the same 
tragedy whose closing scene was the cloud- 
wrapped, darkened, bloody plateau of 
Golgotha. 

Therefore, the purpose of the present 
work is to consider the old, old story of 
Christ's sacrifice of atoning love, and at the 
same time to look at the types of evil which 
played their part in the terrible events 
whose culmination was Calvary and which 
still battle on in the ever-renewed drama 
of mankind. And the hope and the prayer 
which should be in our hearts is this, that, 



DISLOYALTY 5 

as Christ conquered in His gigantic 
struggle, as God will definitely triumph at 
the end of this earthly span, so too we, each 
and all, may win in the fray that we face 
as we go through life. 

Down at the bottom of all true nobility 
and solid greatness is fidelity: the tap-root 
of uprightness and heroic endeavor is 
loyalty, which cleaves to the norm of good- 
ness and obeys the mandate of God. On the 
other hand, down at the bottom of all wick- 
edness is unfaithfulness: the poisoned and 
poisonous source of even the most monstrous 
moral defections is disloyalty. Hence, in 
studying the forces of evil in the struggle 
against good and God let us begin with the 
consideration of this disloyalty. 

Where is its type in the sorrow-flooded 
Passion of the Master? Alas! the whole 
Passion is the story of horrible disloyalty 
ranged against Christ's magnificent loyalty. 
Nowhere is loyalty to be found save in His 
blessed Mother, who followed Him unto the 
end and stood beneath the cross as He bowed 
His head in death ; nowhere save in the love- 
chastened, converted sinner of Magdala, 
who was found worthy of a place beside 



6 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

Christ's stainless Mother; nowhere save in 
the few like John and the devoted women 
and those who from afar off saw what was 
done on the dread hill of execution. All 
others were blackened with the tainted vile- 
ness of disloyalty. 

The Apostles were disloyal: for, though 
the Master had given them permission to 
depart, leaving Him to tread the wine-press 
of sorrow alone, still they were faithless 
to their boast that they were " ready to go 
to prison and to death" 1 with Him. Peter, 
who was to be the foundation-stone of 
Christ's everlasting Church, was faithless: 
for, that same night which had blessed him 
with the heaven-like joy of his First 
Holy Communion and had hallowed him 
with the elevation to a share in the 
very priesthood of Christ, witnessed his 
cowardly denial of his Master and his 
cursing and swearing that he "knew not the 
man," 2 whom he had once gloriously con- 
fessed to be "the Christ, the Son of the liv- 
ing God." 3 The tribunals of the Jews and 
Gentiles were faithless to their bounden 

iLuke XXII, 33; Matt. XXVI, 35. 

2 Cf. Matt. XXVI, 72. 3 Matt. XVI, 16. 



DISLOYALTY 7 

duty to render justice to men. The judges 
were disloyal to the fundamental require- 
ments of their high office. The rulers were 
untrue to the very thing for which they held 
the reins of government and' swayed the 
sceptre of power. The people were rec- 
reant to the trust of heaven and to the very 
purpose that had made them the chosen race 
of God. 

Truly, disloyalty seems to be the very 
atmosphere of the Passion. Yet within the 
darkness that is almost without a gleam of 
brightness, there is a deeper blackness; 
amid the forms of evil that crawl and crouch 
and spring upon the Christ to crush Him to 
His doom, foremost and most hideous is 
the figure of him who stands before the 
world as the embodiment of unworthiness 
and the personification of disloyalty — 
Judas, the Apostle who betrayed his Master, 
Judas the traitor. 

Judas Iscariot was the son of Simon. 
He was the only one of the Apostles who 
was, like Christ Himself, a Judean; for 
the rest were Galileans. The Iscariot, "the 
man of Kerioth," must have had many noble 
qualities and many splendid capabilities for 



8 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

true greatness; for the Master had chosen 
him to be one of His Apostles. For Judas 
there was to be the glory of preparing the 
people for the fuller teaching of the Christ ; 
nay, he must have made preliminary mis- 
sionary tours, when the envoys of the 
Master preached the coming of the King- 
dom of God and returned exulting that even 
the demons were subject to them in the 
name of Jesus. His was the wondrous 
privilege to enjoy close intimacy with the 
God-Man during the days of the public 
ministry, to hear His teachings and to be- 
hold His miracles. His was to be the 
destiny of the others of the Twelve; and 
that was to spread the glad tidings of sal- 
vation, to "preach the gospel to every 
creature/' * to witness to Jesus "in Jerusa- 
lem and in all Judea and Samaria and even 
to the uttermost part of the earth," 2 to give 
testimony unto the heroism of blood to Him 
who died for men, and in the regeneration, 
when the Son of man would come in great 
power and majesty, "to sit on twelve 
thrones judging the twelve tribes of 
Israel." 3 

i Mark XVI, 15. 2 Acta I, 8. 3 Matt. XIX, 28. 



DISLOYALTY 9 

G-lorious was the destiny; propitious, the 
beginning. But gradually Judas fell away 
from what was worthy and noble. Little by 
little his devotedness gave place to disloyal 
perfidy, which ran its course from pilfer- 
ing to criticism of the God-Man, to murmur- 
ings against his Master, and finally to the 
unspeakable treason which has branded the 
one-time Apostle with the mark of shame 
and infamy. How had the mighty fallen! 

When Judas sold his Master to hating 
foes, had he lost faith in the Christ, or had 
he deceived himself with the illusive hope 
that Christ might, when taken, pass through 
the hands of His enemies as on a former 
occasion ? Who shall say 1 But, it is hard 
to see how his faith was firm : a significant 
passage in the gospel according to St. John 
gives us reason at least to question that. A 
year before the cataclysm of blood the 
Master had promised to men, that, for the 
life of the world, He would give His flesh 
to eat and His blood to drink. Some, even 
of the disciples, had drawn Christ's re- 
proach upon themselves because of the un- 
belief in their hard hearts: "There are 
some of you who believe not"; "for," says 



10 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

St. John, "Jesus knew from the beginning 
who were they that did not believe, and who 
he was that would betray him." 1 And 
when, after the departure of those disciples 
who "went back and walked no more with 
him," Jesus had asked the Apostles whether 
they too would go the way of the faithless 
ones, and when Peter had answered, "Lord, 
to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the words 
of eternal life; and we have believed and 
have known that thou art the Christ, the 
Son of God"; then "Jesus answered them: 
Have I not chosen you twelve: and one of 
you is a devil?" A devil! "Judas Is- 
cariot, the son of Simon : for this same was 
about to betray him, whereas he was one of 
the twelve." 2 

From that day the cancer of evil was eat- 
ing more deeply into Judas' soul. Shortly 
before the end of the ministry of mercy he 
murmured at Mary's wasteful extrava- 
gance, as she anointed the Master's feet with 
precious ointment: "Why was not this 
ointment sold for three hundred pence and 
given to the poor?" 3 "Now this he said," 

i John VI, 65. a John XII, 5. 

2 John VI, 67-72. 



DISLOYALTY 11 

comments St. John, "not because he cared 
for the poor, but because he was a thief, and 
having the purse carried the things that 
were put therein. ' ' * And Satan put it into 
his heart to sell his Master. 2 Untempted 
by the priests, but urged on by the great 
adversary, of his own accord "he went and 
discoursed with the chief priests and the 
magistrates, how he might betray him to 
them. And they were glad and covenanted 
to give him money. And he promised. 
And he sought opportunity to betray him." 3 
Thirty pieces of silver, the price of a 
slave, was the gain which he preferred to 
his rejected Lord ! Possibly the money was 
only a partial inducement to his treason ; for 
the sum was wretchedly paltry. But he 
may have visioned other golden streams, 
which would flow to him in compensation 
for his zeal in the cause of the priests; he 
may have hoped to stand well with the 
triumphant popular party; he may have 
looked for further emolument in the days 
of his own growing importance. Thirty 

Uohn XII, 6. 

2 Cf . John XIII, 2. 

s Luke XXII, 3-6. 



12 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

pieces of silver ! For him the die was cast. 

After this nothing could stop him in his 
mad, unchecked rush to destruction. In the 
Supper Room Christ had bowed before him 
in humble love and loving lowliness and had 
washed his feet: the Lord had not driven 
him with burning scorn from the Pasch 
which He had desired to eat with His own. 
Near to that Master Judas had reclined dur- 
ing the ceremonial supper; and then, when 
he had received the morsel of bread which 
pointed out the traitor to "the disciple 
whom Jesus loved," 1 "Satan entered into 
him . . . and he went out immediately. 
And it was night." 2 Yes, it was the night 
of black disloyalty to the best of friends, the 
most loving of benefactors, the most 
gracious Master, the most long-suffering 
God. Disloyalty was hurrying on to the 
climax of its perfidy. 

Now, from darkness let us turn to light. 
As Judas symbolizes disloyalty, so Christ is 
the type of fidelity. His whole life up to 
the hour in the Cenacle has been one un- 
broken chain of acts of loyalty to His work, 

i John XIII, 23; cf. XXI, 7. 2 John XIII, 27, 30. 



DISLOYALTY 13 

to His brethren, and to His heavenly- 
Father. All this, however, we may pass by, 
to gaze in wondering awe at His loyalty as 
it gleams forth from now to the ending of 
His agony in the garden. 

The few moments of peace and love in the 
midst of His own are past. There in the 
Supper Eoom He has made good His 
promise, spoken a year before at Caphar- 
naum, whereby He pledged Himself to give 
His flesh for the life of the world. The 
first Holy Mass has been said ; the first Holy 
Communion has been given to men; and 
close to the hearts of the chosen Apostles 
beats the great Sacred Heart of Jesus, 
throbbing with the love that will redeem the 
world. A hymn of thanksgiving is said; 
and then He turns His back on love and joy, 
and goes forth to hatred and sorrow. 

Out into the cool March night the Master 
passes with the eleven — out into the dark- 
ness, where all the powers of sin and hell 
are waiting in ambush for the conflict 
against God's anointed. From the eleva- 
tion of Mount Sion down towards the valley 
He takes His way. And as He walks along, 
He begins to be faint of heart. The moon 



14 THE UNDYING TEAGEDY 

shines down from the depths of the blue 
Judean sky; but it seems so cold: the stars 
twinkle in the fathomless stretches; but 
they seem so far away and so chill. A 
heavy weight is pressing down upon His 
heart, is shattering His strength and crush- 
ing His courage; for, He begins to be 
afraid. 1 

Afraid! It is very strange, this fear of 
Christ's. He had always been the strong 
one. He had always spoken words of en- 
couragement to His followers. He had 
commanded nature in its wildest moods, 
and His word had calmed the storm. He 
had so often withstood, all alone, the ruthless 
opponents of His cause and had challenged 
them with fearless intrepidity. He had 
passed through the midst of His foes and 
left them helpless in their fury, which would 
have stoned Him to death or cast Him down 
from the height of a precipice. He had 
uttered a word, and the demons had fled in 
terror from the bodies of the possessed. 
Why, but a few short moments ago He had 
uttered words that sounded like a call to 
battle: "Have confidence: I have over- 

iCf. Mark XIV, 33. 



DISLOYALTY 15 

come the world." 1 Yet now, as He goes 
forth to meet the foe, He begins to lose 
courage and to be afraid ! 

We must never forget that the Blessed 
Christ is man as well as God. Yes, God He 
is, and we adore with hearts bowed down; 
He is "God of God, Light of Light, true God 
of true God, consubstantial with the 
Father. ' ' 2 But true man too He is, with a 
human body and a human soul, with a 
human heart and human feelings, with 
human longings and human sympathies. 
And in His growing terror He will allow 
His divinity to influence His humanity only 
in such wise as to support it to bear more 
than a mere man could endure. His love 
for us has urged Him to become "tempted 
in all things such as we are without sin"; 3 
and now He drinks of the chalice of our 
weakness. 

Oh, the pathos of that fear of Christ! 
Have we ever stood near one who was 
drawing near to the gates of the beyond and 
heard the weak, faltering voice tremble 

iJohn XVI, 33. 
2 Nicene Creed. 
a Heb. IV, 15. 



16 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

forth the acknowledgment of the fear which 
sometimes comes even to the good, "I am 
afraid"? Christ's fear is deeper and 
sharper than such dread, and is more 
pathetic in its appeal. But back of the 
pathos there burns the steady flame of His 
undying loyalty to His mission and to His 
Father, there gleams the splendor of His 
more than martyr heroism. What though 
He is afraid ? What though terror is rend- 
ing His very heart-strings? What though 
His strength dissolves like water before the 
fierce anguish of His apprehension? Still, 
He does not falter : He goes on to where His 
Father calls Him to His work of atonement. 

Unhesitating, though afraid, He goes out 
through the eastern gate of the city, down 
the slope that drops away to the brook 
Cedron with the heights frowning above. 
And back there in Jerusalem Judas is busy 
with the enemies of the Christ ; he is gather- 
ing the cohorts of evil ; he is hurrying to the 
consummation of his perfidy, hot with the 
frenzied haste that whips him on, disloyal 
to the Master who is faithful unto death. 

Across the Cedron the sorrowful Master 



DISLOYALTY 17i 

marches on (it is like the charge of a for- 
lorn hope against overwhelming odds) — on 
until He comes to the little garden of Geth- 
seinani, where He has often gone to pray. 
He leaves eight of the Apostles near the 
entrance; and taking with Him Peter and 
James and John, the three always so close 
to Him in other days, He advances about a 
stone's throw into the garden. Here (so a 
tradition has it) He stands before a low 
grotto about thirty feet square and from 
twelve to fourteen feet high. "My soul is 
sorrowful even unto death: stay you here 
and watch with me," * are the words which 
tell of a suffering that would have killed 
Him but for the support of His divinity. 
"Stay you here and watch with me"; for, 
in this overpowering hour of His distress, 
help He must have, even the help of men — 
of those chosen three who have looked 
upon the unveiled splendor of the Only Be- 
gotten of God in the transcendent glory of 
the Transfiguration. They will be able to 
gaze upon His trembling weakness and to 
bear the shock. His growing fear is writing 

i Matt. XXVI, 38. 



18 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

its story on the drawn features of His wan 
face, which as the pale moonbeams fall upon 
it looks like the face of the dead. 

The door of the grotto looms black against 
the starry skies, and the olive trees about it 
look like grim sentinels of disaster. Black- 
ness and dread! But with unfaltering 
loyalty to what is willed in heaven He sends 
to the three Apostles a last look, giving and 
begging love, and He enters the opening of 
the grotto. From the murky depths of the 
cave demon forms seem to mock Him; 
demon hands, to stretch forth to grasp Him ; 
demon hate, to hurl undying enmity against 
His quivering heart. His fear increases; 
His anguish deepens; and in utter misery 
He throws Himself full length upon the 
rocky floor of the cave, wrestling with the 
sorrow that is all but killing Him. Relief 
He must have. So, He turns His fear- 
haunted eyes heavenward and raises His 
trembling hands aloft to His Father. 

"My Father," He pleads, "My Father, if 
it be possible, let this chalice pass from 
me. ' ' 1 He had longed for this chalice, filled 
full with the blood-red sorrow of His atone- 

iMatt. XXVI, 39. 



DISLOYALTY 19 

ment; He had yearned for it with a desire 
that was like an unquenchable thirst, so that 
He was straitened and in pain until He 
should hold it fast to His lips and drain it to 
its last bitter drops. Yet now? "Let it 
pass from me." And if He had stopped 
there in His prayer, it would have passed; 
but His tremendous loyalty would have been 
less complete, His martyr example would 
have been less compelling, His victory would 
have been less entire. But He does not stop 
there; He goes on: "Nevertheless not as I 
will; but as thou wilt"; 1 ". . . not my will, 
but thine be done." 2 

Yet the Father's face is turned away. 
Christ sees only anger in His Father's heart ; 
and the Son of God grovels on the ground in 
agony, whilst the horrible tidal wave of sin 
rushes in upon Him. Sin encompasses the 
Holy One of God — the sins of all mankind ! 
The vileness that rose heavenward and pro- 
voked God's just wrath to let loose the 
waters of the deluge, the nameless horrors 
of Sodom and Gomorrha, the unspeakable 
outrages of pagan Greece and Eome, of the 

i Matt. XXVT, 39. 
2 Luke XXII, 42. 



20 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

Babylons of the past and of the days to 
come — sin upon sin, wave after wave of 
loathsomeness wrap Him round and enfold 
Him. And— God help us!— we are not 
guiltless of all this. We stood over Him 
and heaped our transgressions upon the 
seething waters of defilement: we pushed 
Him down deeper into the black flood, as His 
sinless soul groaned forth the words, "I 
have come into the depth of the sea, and a 
tempest hath overwhelmed me." * 

The sins of all mankind are upon Him; 
for, "the Lord hath laid down upon him the 
iniquities of us all. ' ' 2 They are upon Him- — 
oh, ineffable horror! — as if He had been 
guilty of them all ; as if His trembling hands 
were red with all the murders from the kill- 
ing of Abel to the last deed of violence done 
before the end of days ; as if His quivering 
lips, which are straining forth His cry of 
loyal acceptance of His chalice of pain, were 
defiled with all the blasphemies and obsceni- 
ties and revilings that have broken the har- 
mony of creation ; as if His all but bursting 
heart were buried beneath all the injustice 

i Ps. LXVIII, 3. 
2 Isaias LIII, 6. 



DISLOYALTY 21 

and impiety and pride and impurity that 
have made a charnel house of God's fair 
world. No wonder He grovels there in 
agony, stricken by God as if He were the 
personification of evil and the incarnation of 
sin. No wonder the drawn lines about His 
temples and haggard lips deepen and quiver. 
No wonder the first pink blushing of blood 
mantles his brow and tinges His cheeks and 
darkens His palsied hands. 

With a sigh of anguish He rises and goes 
out to His Apostles, only to find them sleep- 
ing. But across the torrent of Cedron, back 
there in the city of David, sleep is not master 
of His oncoming enemies. Judas does not 
sleep ; the priests do not sleep ; the hangers- 
on of the palace do not sleep. They are 
marshalling their forces; they are ordering 
their plans ; they are ready to take the road 
out from the darkened city, when the hour 
shall have come that shall sound the first 
note of their hating triumph. 

"Could you not watch one hour with 
me?" 1 This tenderly pathetic appeal is 
Christ's only reproof for the fickle weakness 
of the Apostles. But His next words sound 

iMatt. XXVI, 40. 



22 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

the trumpet call of victorious loyalty for 
all men as they face the ways of life: 
" Watch ye and pray, that ye enter not into 
temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, 
but the flesh is weak." 1 By the heroic 
loyalty of the weakened Christ, may we 
learn the lesson! May we make honest ef- 
forts to avoid wrong-doing, and may we 
send up unceasing appeals to God for His 
help, so as to stand true to Him in all the at- 
tacks of foes from without and of weakness 
from within ! 

Back again the Savior goes to the grotto, 
tottering toward the second martyrdom of 
His gigantic fidelity. Once more He prays, 
" saying the same words." 2 And the ap- 
prehension of all that lies before Him ere 
tomorrow's sun shall have sunk behind the 
western hills rushes upon Him with its com- 
bined horror of infamy and pain. Must He 
be betrayed by one of His own % And must 
He be dragged in disgraceful bonds through 
the streets of the city which but five days 
before had rung with the glad hosannas that 
welcomed the Son of David to the city of 

i Matt. XXVI, 41. 
2 Mark XIV, 39. 



DISLOYALTY 23 

David? And must He be condemned of 
blasphemy by the highest religious authority 
in the land? And must He be put even 
lower than a brigand murderer ? And must 
He be scourged and crowned with thorns 
and rejected by His people ? And must He 
be sentenced to death and bear His cross and 
be nailed to the gibbet and die upon the tree 
of shame? Oh, Father, must this be? 
"My Father, if this chalice may not pass 
away, but I must drink it, thy will be 
done." * 

And down Sion's slope there move the 
dark forms of many marchers. The muf- 
fled murmur of many voices is breaking 
upon the still air. The flashing of lanterns 
and the gleam of swords in the flare of 
torches slash the darkness of night. And 
in the midst of the leaders is Judas, coming 
on to the accomplishment of his fell purpose. 

For the third time, after another visit to 
His sleeping Apostles, back to the grotto the 
weary Master drags His fainting steps, to 
pray again to the Father whose face is 
turned away. The unbearable load of sin, 
which nevertheless He must carry, the craz- 

i Matt. XXVI, 42. 



24 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY. 

ing thought of the uncounted woes before 
Htm— all this must have made His sad 
thoughts turn to those for whom He suffers. 
Men! What have so many of them ever 
done from the day when they were placed 
upon this earth, but outrage the divine love 
that yearned over them? Is it worth while 
to endure a very orgy of torture for such as 
these? How many of them in the days to 
come will but damn themselves the deeper 
into hell because He died for them! Is it 
worth while? And His great heart an- 
swers, Yes, it is worth while: it is worth 
while to do the will of the Father; it is 
worth while to save the least of the children 
of men ; it is worth while to be loyal to the 
end. 

So fierce is the effort of His strong resist- 
ance to feeble, faltering nature, that the 
blood is forced from the pores of His body, 
soaks the garments that He wears, and red- 
dens the rocky floor of the grotto where He 
prays. "And being in an agony he prayed 
the longer, and his sweat became as drops 
of blood trickling down upon the ground. ' ' * 

In the midst of His sorrow He is consoled 

i Luke XXII, 43, 44. 



DISLOYALTY 25 

by the ministration of one of the angelic 
spirits; and being comforted, He rises up. 
Past is His hour of almighty weakness, en- 
dured for us that His weakness by touching 
our weakness may make us stronger than 
ourselves. Henceforth He will meet with- 
out flinching all that lies ahead before the 
angry sunset of tomorrow. "Rise," He 
says to His Apostles, as He wakes them 
from their shaming slumber, "Rise, let us 
go: behold he is at hand who will betray 
me." 1 

And nearer and nearer up the incline of 
Mount Olivet there comes the roar of an 
approaching mob; lights flash amidst the 
trees that clothe the hillside; soldiers and 
servants and priests and officers stop at the 
entrance of the garden to put some order 
into the confusion of their ranks. The 
words of command are rehearsed ; for there 
must be no mistake as the decisive moment 
draws near. The sign which will make as- 
surance doubly sure is whispered into the 
ears of the leaders of the mob by him who 
skulks in their midst — by the "thief," the 
"devil," Judas Iscariot. The Christ moves 

iMatt. XXVI, 46. 



26 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

onward with His followers, as Judas steps 
forward to complete his deed of evil ; and the 
Master and the recreant Apostle stand face 
to face. 

Does the memory of all that Christ has 
done for him rush into Judas' soul and 
paralyze his limbs ? He halts confused and 
silent. "Whom seek ye?" says Christ to 
the mob. Still silent, Judas ? Where is the 
sign? The crowd, looking uneasily at 
Judas, says: " Jesus of Nazareth." "I 
am he," declares the Savior; and at the 
words of majesty of this forsaken Man they 
(at least the front ranks) are stricken pros- 
trate to the earth. Again He asks: 
"Whom seek ye?" Oh, they know Him 
now, even if they did not know Him before ; 
but like frightened children again they 
stammer: "Jesus of Nazareth." 1 The 
sign, Judas ! Where is the sign? And the 
wretched traitor, with a sudden stiffening 
of his resolution to do quickly what he has 
come to do, steps forward. He advances to 
the Christ; he places his hands upon the 
Master's shoulders; he dares to lay his 

i Cf . John XVIII, 4-7. 



DISLOYALTY 27 

traitor lips upon the Master's cheek. 
"Hail Rabbi" * — and he kisses Him! 

He kisses Him! Disloyalty prostitutes 
the sacred sign of love, that loyalty may be 
delivered into the hands of hating foes. 
And Christ allowing His enemies to work 
their will, because He chooses to drink the 
chalice which the Father has given Him to 
drink, His foes rush forward; and, in a 
fury that would make amends to themselves 
for their discomfiture in presence of this 
abandoned Victim, they bind Him securely 
and take their way back to the city. Not 
with shouts of triumph do they go, but 
silently, as if slinking away from a deed of 
blood (for they fear the people still) ; and 
Christ takes the first steps towards the con- 
summation of the morrow that will live unto 
the endless ages of eternity. 

There is the compelling contrast: Christ 
and Judas, loyalty and disloyalty. 
Through loyalty one is true to self, true to 
the neighbor, true most of all to God. 
Judas in his disloyalty was false to all of 
these. False he was to the God-given lean- 

i Matt. XXVI, 49. 



28 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

ings to what is noble and worthy; false to 
his neighbor, especially to Him who had 
been to him the most considerate Master, 
the most faithful friend, the most lavish 
benefactor; false to God, the firm founda- 
tion of all loyalty. 

After the betrayal and capture of Christ, 
back to the city went Judas, mingling with 
the crowd. Was his head held high in the 
consciousness of laudable accomplishment? 
Surely the worm of remorse must have al- 
ready begun its gnawing at his tortured 
soul: surely the spectre of his monstrous 
perfidy must have been stalking before him 
with the taunt that would not be silenced. 
Later he saw the Christ rough-handled by 
the cruelty of unfeeling brutes; he heard 
the sentence of death pronounced by Israel's 
highest authority; he rushed to the priests, 
groaning the soul-racked cry that he had 
sinned in betraying innocent blood. And 
then he outraged the Master more foully 
than he had done when he sold Him to His 
foes ; for he gave free rein to the wild orgy 
of despair. Before, he had attacked the 
liberty of Christ: in his final defection he 
spurned the attribute which is the crown of 



DISLOYALTY 29 

Christ's humanity and the centre of Christ's 
divinity — His loving mercy. Whosoever 
denies the mercy of God toward the re- 
pentant sinner, denies the Godhead itself. 
That was Judas' last crime, the climax of 
his disloyalty. In the utter abandon of 
despair he "went and hanged himself with 
a halter"; 1 and his wretched, sin-stained 
soul was called in judgment before the 
Christ, to whom "the Father hath given 
power to do judgment because he is the Son 
of man." 2 

Then was disloyalty judged by loyalty it- 
self; for Christ is loyalty itself. He was 
ever true to Himself, to the peerless man- 
hood in which He is the paragon of human- 
ity. He was true to His neighbor, even to 
the traitor, whom in the hour of the accom- 
plishment of treason he called friend, 
"Friend, whereto art thou come?" 3 
"Judas, dost thou betray the Son of man 
with a kiss?" 4 He was true to the 
heavenly Father, to whose will He clung 
unto the bloody agony of torture on the 
floor of Gethsemani's grotto. 

i Matt. XXVII, 5. s Matt. XXVI, 50. 

2 John V, 27. 4 Luke XXII, 48. 



30 THE UNDYING TKAGEDY 

'As we look on these two figures, as op- 
posed as life and death; as we shrink back 
in horror from the hideous disloyalty of 
Judas and glow with love for the tender and 
pathetic, yet strong and heroic, fidelity of 
Christ; let us give thought to our own 
loyalty in its three main aspects. 

First of all, we must be true to ourselves ; 
for this is the beginning of uprightness. 
The poet was right when he said : 

"To thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man. ' ' ■ 

At the basis of morality lies the fact, that 
we are acting well when we do such things 
as are in accordance with our God-given na- 
ture, not in its unworthy longings, not in 
its disorderly instincts to place the animal 
above the rational, not in the perversion 
which would call human the leanings that 
are common to man with the brute ; but with 
that nature of ours which is rational, in 
which the higher powers should rule the 
lower, which is essentially equal with the 
nature of our fellow humans, and which, by 

i Hamlet, Act. I, Scene III. 



DISLOYALTY 31 

reason of its very essence, should forever 
and irrevocably be subject to the sover- 
eignty of God. To be true to ourselves in 
this sense, is to work out the plan of God 
in our regard and to bring ourselves to the 
summit of earthly well-being, which shall 
merge into the endless perfection of eternal 
happiness in heaven. To be false to our- 
selves is to disturb the order of God's crea- 
tion, to brand ourselves with the mark of 
sin's perfidy, to disgrace the manhood that 
was meant for things high and noble, to 
blast the dignity of our human nature. 
Of a truth, we ourselves are the standard 
of what is good in our regard ; but the bind- 
ing force which holds us to fidelity to this 
norm is above and beyond us ; it is the will 
of our almighty Lord and Master. 

True to ourselves, we must and shall be 
true to others, "Thou canst not then be false 
to any man" ; for the same norm directs and 
the same will prescribes loyalty to our 
neighbor. Loyalty to the neighbor de- 
mands that we be faithful to promises, just 
in giving to every man what is rightfully his, 
charitable and considerate beyond the re- 
quirements of justice. If all men were 



32 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

conspicious for this loyalty to their fel- 
lows, this world of ours would be rejuv- 
enated. Then a war, like the stupendous 
world-struggle of the past four years and a 
half, would never have ravaged the beauty 
of earth and crushed mankind with the red 
savagery of battle ; and peace, based on jus- 
tice and liberty, would forever gladden the 
nations. 

But, finally, the firm ground on which 
loyalty to ourselves and to our neighbor 
must rest is unshaken loyalty to God. He 
.s the Beginning and the End ; He is the Lord 
and Master ; He is, as His loving revelation 
has shown Him to us, the Father of His 
children. To be true to His sublime excel- 
lence, faithful to His supreme lordship, 
loyal to His fatherly affection — this is the 
ideal which should thrill our souls and urge 
us on to heroism of effort. 

Neglect God and our religious duties 
which profess our subjection to Him? 
That were disloyalty. Scorn His revela- 
tion and pass it by in indifference or, per- 
haps, in positive contempt? That were 
perfidy. Stand out against Him as He 
thunders His mandates in the power of His 



DISLOYALTY 33 

omnipotence or whispers His commands in 
the tender pleadings of love unutterable? 
That were treason. Yes, all grievous sin is 
not only the perversion of our greatness and 
the disgrace of our human nature ; it is not 
only the pestilential hot-house of dissension 
with one's fellows, of injustice toward one's 
neighbors, of unfaithfulness to one's com- 
rades : it is also the turning away from God 
and the blasting of the soul with the base- 
ness which appalls the world in the arch- 
traitor Judas, the fallen Apostle. 

Need I voice the call to unalterable 
loyalty ? Need I urge you, and myself with 
you, to fly the foul shame of disloyalty % In 
words that ring down the ages the call and 
the urging have been spoken by the events 
which we have been considering. Their 
compelling force is incomparable. Let us 
keep before our souls' vision two pictures, 
and they are these : 

The first? There on the floor of the 
blood-stained grotto lies the Son of God, 
writhing in killing agony, battling the might 
of sin and hell. His face is drawn with 
the lines which suffering has engraved upon 
the features of Him who was the fairest of 



34 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

the sons of men: His eyes are gaunt with 
the shadows that have been left there by the 
dark vision of evil : His members are quiver- 
ing with the weakness of unbearable appre- 
hension and fear : His garments are soaked 
with the blood of the heart-tearing struggle. 
But He rises and goes forth to meet His 
doom with a smile upon His haggard lips 
and a thrill in His all but breaking heart. 
He has faced the issue; He has fought the 
fight; He has conquered the faintness of 
shrinking nature. And His battle cry has 
already been flung to the air of heaven, as 
He has whispered: " Father, thy will be 
done!" 

And the other picture? There in the 
shadows of the valley a lonely tree stands 
out in grim desolation. It bears upon its 
bough a ghastly fruit — the fruit of treason 
and disloyalty. Oh, the distorted face; the 
staring eyes, fixed on the horror that will 
never die ; the protruding entrails ; the rigid 
body at the end of the halter, swaying, sway- 
ing in the fitful breeze ; and, like the mock- 
ing cry of taunting demons, the echo of the 
words, "Hail, Rabbi! I kissed Him!" 

Which do we wish to symbolize our lives ? 



DISLOYALTY 35 

Which do we wish to tell the story of our 
days ? Is it to be disloyalty or fidelity for 
us? Please God! the question is an- 
swered in the asking. True to ourselves, 
faithful to our fellows, loyal to our God — 
the watchword of our lives, "Thy will be 
done!" 



CHAPTER II 

THE SANHEDRIM AND DUPLICITY 

"For envy they had delivered him." Matt. 
XXVII, 18. 

"It is expedient . . . that one man should die for 
the people." John XI, 50. 

" He hath blasphemed. . . . He is worthy of death." 
Matt. XXVI, 65, 66. 

"We have found this man perverting our nation, 
and forbidding to give tribute to Cajsar, and saying 
that he is Christ the King." Luke XXIII, 2. 

"He ought to die because he made himself the Son 
of God." John XIX, 7. 

We are looking at the forces of evil 
which were ranged against our Blessed 
Lord in His terrible Passion, and which are 
drawn up in opposition to good and God in 
the tragedy that will last until time shall be 
no more. We have already considered dis- 
loyalty with its perversion of all that is 
noble. Its monstrous embodiment we found 
in the traitor Apostle, Judas, of whom the 
God-Man said: "It were better for him, if 
that man had not been born." * And as a 

i Matt. XXVI, 24. 

36 



DUPLICITY 37 

splendid contrast to this vision of wicked- 
ness we have studied Christ's unswerving 
fidelity to His appointed mission, His abso- 
lute loyalty to the will of His heavenly 
Father. 

Let us proceed to treat of another power 
for evil, which often leads to the wretched- 
ness of disloyalty, and which numbers its 
victims by uncounted millions. This is 
insincerity, double-dealing, crookedness, 
craftiness — in a word, duplicity. This du- 
plicity is appalling in its ruinous effective- 
ness; for it thwarts God's hallowed designs 
in many souls, whether it be rampant in its 
most loathsome form of hypocrisy, or dis- 
guised in its more subtle manifestations 
of half-conscious or almost unconscious 
double-dealing. 

The baseness of duplicity is thrown into 
more despicable prominence by the ap- 
pealing nobility of straightforwardness. 
We admire and extol simplicity and candid 
truth, which are the shining heritage of un- 
spoiled human nature; nor do we hesitate 
to echo the words of the homely verse which 
says that 



38 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

"An honest man, though e'er so poor, 
Is king of men, for a' that!" 1 

Would that our emulation of the glory of 
the sincere and simple and straightforward 
were as strenuous as our admiration is un- 
feigned ! 

Our dear Lord voiced His approbation 
of our judgment about duplicity and sim- 
plicity, when He said: "If thy eye be sin- 
gle, thy whole body shall be lightsome ; but if 
thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be dark- 
some"; 2 "Let your speech be yea, yea; no, 
no. " 3 It was as if He had said : "Let your 
soul look straight to duty, right up to God; 
let your tongue declare your thoughts with- 
out guile or deceit ; let your actions aim full 
at the mark of obligation, and drive to the 
bull's-eye of truth and honest uprightness.' ' 
Thus Christ commends our native apprecia- 
tion of simple sincerity; thus He seconds 
our contempt for the mean littleness of du- 
plicity. And the unparalleled heroism of 
the example of His whole life echoes the 
lesson of His words. 

i Robert Burns. 
2 Matt. VI, 22. 
s Matt. V, 37. 



DUPLICITY 39 

Where in Christ's Passion shall we find a 
type or embodiment of duplicity? In the 
" chief priests and the ancients," the 
" scribes and Pharisees, " the members of 
the Sanhedrim and those who were its mas- 
ters. Hypocrites they were; and the 
Christ had boldly called them by their 
name. 1 Blind they were and the leaders of 
the blind; and the gentle Master had 
branded them with the infamy which was 
theirs by reason of their wilful exclusion 
of the light. 2 Tricky they were and de- 
ceitful, cloaking under the show of zeal for 
the Law their mad resolve to crush their 
victim, prostituting justice under the forms 
of judicial trial, making a farce of official 
investigation. Without a doubt, in their 
war against the single-minded Christ they 
symbolized duplicity in its most hideous 
aspect. As Judas stands for disloyalty, the 
Sanhedrim stands for duplicity. 

Their crafty double-dealing is evident in 
their persecution of the Master. Their 
hatred of Him had waxed stronger, as the 
years of the public ministry ran on; the 

iCf. Matt. XV, 7. 
2 Cf. Matt. XV, 14. 



40 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

clouds of the storm of malice had grown 
thicker and blacker, as glad hosannas tri- 
umphantly welcomed His entry into Jeru- 
salem and the news of the raising of Lazarus 
from the tomb glorified Him. They feared 
that their power was slipping away from 
them. 

"What do we, for this man doth many 
miracles? If we leave him alone so, all 
will believe in him; and the Romans will 
come and take away our place and nation. ' ' 1 
"And they consulted together that by sub- 
tilty" (by fraud and craft, dolo) "they 
might apprehend Jesus and put him to 
death." 2 "But . . . Caiaphas . . . said to 
them : ... It is expedient for you that one 
man should die for the people, and that the 
whole nation perish not. ' ' 3 

Their venomous envy was the reason why 
they hated Him ; yet the charge under which 
they condemned Him was that of blasphemy, 
and the charges which they urged against 
Him before Pilate were those of sedition 
and treason to Rome. It was all dissem- 

Uohn XI, 47, 48. 

2 Matt. XXVI, 4. 

3 John XI, 49, 50. 



DUPLICITY 41 

bling, hypocrisy, double-dealing, craftiness. 
But the inmost heart of their duplicity was 
shown in the injustice of the trials in which 
they tried to cover up the traces of their 
blinded envious hate. Let us look at these 
trials, in which justice became a mockery; 
examination, a farce; the most venerated 
judicial body of the Jews, the tool of bloody 
handed murderers to crush their prey. 

Down the slope of Olivet and up the hill 
that led to Jerusalem Christ was dragged, 
as a bound prisoner, to face — not yet the 
Sanhedrim, but him who was the master of 
the master of the Sanhedrim. "And they 
led him away to Annas first ; for he was the 
father-in-law to Caiaphas who was the high 
priest of that year." x Here was the begin- 
ning of injustice ; for Annas, not being the 
official high priest, had no legal authority 
in the case. But he was the hand behind the 
puppet, the power behind the throne; he 
was the very head and front of the opposi- 
tion against Christ Jesus. 

Annas was of the priestly line, and some 
of the Jews looked upon him alone as pos- 
sessing the real right to the high-priesthood. 

i John XVIII, 13. 



42 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY. 

High priest he had been; but when he was 
deposed by the Romans, he made no open 
opposition. He only smiled and smiled, 
and was the oily villain still. He had been 
preceded in the office by his son; he was 
succeeded by creatures of his own ; and now 
his son-in-law, Caiaphas, occupied the im- 
portant post and had done so for ten years. 
But the wily old strategist was still in power, 
and even Caiaphas would not dare to say 
him nay. So, Christ was led before Annas, 
that the crafty old plotter might gloat over 
his victim and warm the cold springs of his 
heart by gazing upon his prey. Yes, all 
had gone well thus far! But a little more 
cunning managing — and this Man would be 
disgraced before the world; the people 
would no more go after Him; and thus the 
Romans, with no cause for complaint, would 
be satisfied with honeyed words and golden 
tribute ; and Annas would be ruler of Jeru- 
salem, a king in all but name. 

Christ, then, stood before Annas, and An- 
nas " asked Jesus of his disciples and his 
doctrine. ' ' * Was it to learn the truth 1 
Far from it. It was duplicity pursuing its 

i John XVI IT, 19. 



DUPLICITY 43 

tortuous way of deceit. It was to gain time 
for the hurried gathering of the Sanhe- 
drim; and meanwhile it was to glow at the 
prospect of assured victory, and, if might 
be, to extort some word from the prisoner 
which devilish craft might turn against 
Him. Out against the blackness of Annas' 
double-dealing Christ's sincerity and 
straightforward simplicity shine like a star 
against the murky night. 

He had been asked about His disciples 
and His doctrine. About His disciples He 
could not just then say much that was good. 
One of them had betrayed Him, after selling 
Him to His enemies; that very night an- 
other, the chief one of the Twelve, would 
deny that he knew his Lord and Master ; and 
all the rest, in spite of their brave protes- 
tation that they would abide with Him to 
the end, had fled away and left Him alone in 
the power of His foes. No, He could not 
say much that was good about His disci- 
ples; and so, the dear Lord said nothing. 
An example for a gossiping and scandal- 
mongering world ! 

But about the second part of the question, 
as to His doctrine, there was no need for 



44 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

silence. Straight from the heart of truth 
He spoke; straight to the heart of truth 
He went: "Why askest thou me? Ask 
them who have heard what I have spoken to 
them/' 1 Thus He laid bare the duplicity 
of His questioner, by reminding him that it 
was the part of a judge, not to ask ensnar- 
ing questions, but to see that proof was ad- 
duced. At these words of single, simple 
honesty, a servant standing by, to curry 
favor with his discomfited master, acted out 
some more hypocritical pretence; and, in 
feigned respect for outraged authority, gave 
Christ a blow in the face, saying: "An- 
swerest thou the high priest so ?" 2 " Jesus 
answered him : If I have spoken evil, give 
testimony of the evil"; accuse me; prove 
your charge against me; "but if well, why 
strikest thou me?" 3 

Hardened as Annas was, he had to feel 
this rebuke to his own misuse of his posi- 
tion and to the uncorrected brutality of his 
minion. If the brow of man could still 

Uohn XVIII, 21. 

2 John XVIII, 22. 

3 John XVIII, 23. 



DUPLICITY 45 

crimson to the blush of honest shame, he had 
to be covered with confusion. To extricate 
himself from the annoyance, there remained 
but one thing to do — and that one thing he 
did. He sent Christ away to Caiaphas, the 
high priest, 1 to face His prearranged con- 
demnation. 

And so Christ passed from before 
Annas. Never again did the Master stand 
alone before the cruel plotter. It was the 
passing of Christ, the passing away of the 
last call to grace, which Annas in his mad- 
ness rejected. May we never allow double- 
dealing with God to harden our hearts 
against the call of grace! If we do, the 
angel of mercy may pass us by, to return 
with the sword of God's vengeance in his 
hand. Alas for Annas! when Christ was 
led from before his presence to another part 
of the palace, where Caiaphas and the has- 
tily summoned members of the Sanhedrim 
were waiting to continue the farce of jus- 
tice and the work of duplicity. 

Christ before the Sanhedrim on trial for 
His life! In cases of a capital nature, it 

i Cf. John XVIII, 24. 



46 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

must be noted, the Jewish and rabbinical 
laws required that investigation should first 
be made into the things which might prove 
the accused free from the guilt of crime. 
For this purpose witnesses had first to be 
sought who might testify in his favor. 
Only after this were the witnesses against 
him to be heard. Moreover, these witnesses 
were to be warned of the seriousness of 
the matter in hand; their uprightness was 
to be established before they were admitted 
to speak; they were to be impressed with 
the gravity of saying anything false, nay, 
of saying anything which they knew only by 
hearsay, even though their informant were 
a man of the highest integrity. After all 
this, they were to be brought into the judg- 
ment-chamber one by one to give their 
testimony before the judges, in such a way 
that the second witness might not hear what 
the first had said. Meanwhile, scribes 
carefully took down every word, and if the 
witnesses did not agree in their deposi- 
tions, their testimony was thrown out. 
Finally, after the witnesses had been heard 
and examined the votes of the judges were 
gathered, and if the sentence on the accused 



DUPLICITY 47 

was one of condemnation, it might not be 
pronounced until the following day. 1 

These requirements of the rabbinical law 
may not all have held good in the days of 
our Blessed Lord, though most of them must 
have been extant, since they are demanded 
by natural justice. But in Christ's case 
they were violated, one and all; and His 
trial was the riotous anarchy of injustice 
masquerading under the garb of right. 

So, Jesus was arraigned before the grand 
council, the Sanhedrim. This tribunal was 
gloried in by the Jews and admired by the 
nations; but from this day forth it would 
be disgraced forever. There was the presi- 
dent of the council, Caiaphas the high 
priest; there was Annas with the others 
who were his creatures, as was the chief of 
the court; there were the scribes and the 
ancients. They wore the mask of disinter- 
ested judges and pious guardians of the 
Law of Jahve. But, with a few exceptions, 
they were a pack of ravening wolves, thirst- 
ing for the blood of the Innocent One before 
them, chafing within themselves because 
they had to hide their panting hate beneath 

i Cf . Cursus SS., Knabenbauer, In Matt., II, p. 468. 



48 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

the guise of unselfishness and gloss over a 
deed of blood with the appearance of jus- 
tice. 

The Sadducees (and most of the priests 
were of these sensualists) would have none 
of Christ, because they were satisfied with 
the temporal advantages which accrued to 
them from compromises with Rome. The 
Pharisees were fanatics, clinging to the 
perverted ideal of an earthly political King- 
dom of God, which should raise Israel to 
the peak of material grandeur, with the 
kings of the world cowering in cringing 
dread beneath their feet. But this Man 
menaced the realization of the dreams of 
both Sadducees and Pharisees. So, "Away 
with him!" But the people were thronging 
after Him. Then, must He be put to death. 
Thus they had determined before they be- 
gan His present trial : yet, though His sen- 
tence was fixed, they tried Him. Duplicity 
gone mad ; double-dealing rushing on to hor- 
rible sacrilege; hypocrisy enthroned and 
worshiped as the master of their souls! 

As has been said, the law required that, 
first of all, witnesses should be called in who 
might testify in favor of the accused. 



DUPLICITY 49 

Where were they? Where were those who 
had been healed of their diseases by Christ's 
miraculous power % Where were those who 
had followed Him out into the desert, for- 
getful of the wants of nature % Where were 
those who, but five days before, had strewn 
palm branches in His path and welcomed the 
Son of David to the city of David with the 
loud hosannas of exulting triumph? Were 
all these grown basely and utterly craven, 
even before the stigma of public condemna- 
tion had blasted Christ's fair name in the 
minds of the fickle ? No such favoring wit- 
nesses were sought out: none such would 
have been admitted to this chamber of pre- 
determined death. For, these judges (!) 
held counsel "that they might put Jesus to 
death." 1 

Passing by any who might have testified 
in behalf of the Christ, the Sanhedrists 
brought in witnesses against Him. In the 
depths of their dissembling souls the mem- 
bers of the council knew that they could 
obtain no true testimony of a real crime 
against Jesus of Nazareth ; for, long before 
this, He had triumphantly challenged them 

iMatt. XXVI, 4. 



50 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

to find aught of evil in His doctrine or His 
life, and had said: " Which of you shall 
convince me of sin?" 1 And these pledged 
supporters of justice, these plighted guar- 
dians of right, these official shepherds of the 
people of God suborned false witnesses, 
that the web of death might be woven around 
the prisoner who was condemned before He 
was brought to trial. 

But, in spite of all, nothing could be 
brought forward which would give any- 
color of justice to a sentence of death. In 
face of this failure Caiaphas raged within 
himself. Was Christ to escape, unless the 
mask were dropped and hypocrisy stood 
forth in its naked horror? And the high 
priest's eyes stealthily glanced at the hard, 
cruel face of Annas. If witnesses had 
failed, Christ Himself must furnish the 
grounds of condemnation. So, turning to 
the prisoner, the false-hearted judge ad- 
dressed Him: "Answereth thou nothing 
to the things which these witness against 
thee? But Jesus held his peace." 2 He 
would not answer these men who had 

i John VIII, 46. 
2 Matt. XXVI, 62. 



DUPLICITY 51 

blinded their souls to the light of truth; 
nor was there any rhyme or reason in an- 
swering "the things which these witnessed 
against" Him. The cheeks of Caiaphas, 
flushed hot with the fierce hatred within 
his heart, burned redder yet, as the watch- 
ful eyes of Annas, his crafty master, 
pierced his servile soul. No answer from 
the accused? Then, must He be forced to 
speak and to voice His own destruction. 

Was it the cunning of Annas which had 
suggested the means to be resorted to in the 
last extremity? Perhaps. Caiaphas rose 
from his seat at the head of the assembly; 
and, with all the authority that could be 
crowded into his words, he said : "I adjure 
thee by the living God that thou tell us if 
thou be the Christ, the Son of God." 1 
The adjuration was framed with devilish 
skill. If, after this solemn adjuration in 
the name of the living God, Christ refused 
to answer, He could be crushed as one who 
disregarded the majesty of Jahve. Yes, 
He must answer ; and His reply would have 
the force of an oath-bound declaration. 

What would the answer be % Should He 

i Matt. XXVI, 63. 



52 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

say that He was not the Christ, they would 
condemn Him as a seducer of the people 
who had claimed to be the Son of God; 
should He declare that He was the Son of 
the living God, they would cry out against 
Him for His blasphemy. What would the 
answer be? In view of Christ's absolute 
sincerity and candor, there could be no 
question of a refusal to answer and no 
doubt as to the answer itself. His mis- 
sion and His Sonship to the Father He 
had proclaimed with growing clearness, 
as the souls of men were prepared for 
the full disclosure of His dignity. Now 
He rejoiced that the hour had come, 
when in the hearing of the supreme religious 
tribunal of the people of God He could make 
His solemn profession of His divine Son- 
ship. 

As Caiaphas' question rang out through 
the marble hall and was succeeded by a 
silence vibrant with emotion, the quick, 
angry, gasping breathing of the questioner 
might almost be heard. Christ raised His 
eyes to the face of the high priest and cast 
a glance at His judges' set countenances, 
hard with hypocrisy and hate— and He read 



DUPLICITY 53 

His doom of death. But what was condem- 
nation to the solemn declaration of all that 
He was? What was death to fidelity? 
There was no shifting of attitude, no shirk- 
ing of responsibility, no attempt at evasion, 
no trace of duplicity in the brave, simple, 
straightforward Master. "Art thou the 
Christ, the Son of the blessed God?" 1 
"Thou hast said it: 2 I am. 3 Nevertheless 
I say to you, hereafter you shall see the Son 
of man sitting on the right hand of the 
power of God, and coming in the clouds of 
heaven." 4 

A gleam of satisfaction lighted up the 
face of Caiaphas: he almost heaved a sigh 
of relief. At last ! at long last ! he had tri- 
umphed! But still duplicity must rule: 
still hypocrisy must hold sway. His breast 
was heaving high with the joy of victory ; yet 
he must dissemble his gladness under the 
veil of horrified indignation at the insult 
offered to God's supreme majesty. "Then 
the high priest rent his garments, saying: 
He hath blasphemed; what further need 

iMark XIV, 61. 
2 Matt. XXVI, 64. 
a Mark XIV, 62. 
4 Matt. XXVI, 64. 



54 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

have we of witnesses?" 1 He hath blas- 
phemed! And in the law of Jahve it was 
written: "He that blasphemeth the name 
of the Lord, dying let him die." 2 He hath 
blasphemed! "Behold, now you have 
heard the blasphemy: what think you? 
But they answering said: He is guilty of 
death." 3 And by the Sanhedrim, the 
highest religious authority of the Jewish 
people, Christ was condemned to death for 
blasphemy. 

Hypocrisy and duplicity had conquered. 
The Sanhedrists, as has been seen, sought 
Christ's death because of their envy towards 
Him and because they feared that His posi- 
tion might diminish their own worldly 
prominence; but they glossed over their 
foul perjury of heart with the semblance of 
zeal for God's honor. Truly, as David said, 
"iniquity hath lied to itself," 4 and it con- 
tinued to lie. 

Their iniquity lied to itself in act, when 
it outraged every civilized nation's sense 
of justice, which shows consideration, if not 

i Matt. XXVI, 65. 
2Levit. XXIV, 16. 
3 Matt. XXVI, 65, 66. 
4Ps. XXVI, 12. 



DUPLICITY 55 

pity, to the condemned criminal and leaves 
him in peace until he faces the black hour 
of his fate. But they showed neither pity 
nor consideration. On the contrary, they 
gave Christ into the hands of the hangers- 
on of the palace, and may themselves have 
mingled with the riotous revelers, who dur- 
ing the weary watches of the rest of the 
night vented their diabolical vileness upon 
Him. " And some began to spit on him and 
to cover his face and to buffet him and to say 
unto him: Prophesy: and the servants 
struck him with the palms of their hands. ' ' 1 
Their iniquity lied to itself in words. 
For, when they haled Christ before the pa- 
gan governor, they did not accuse Him of 
blasphemy against God, the charge under 
which they had condemned Him; but per- 
fidiously accused Him of sedition and trea- 
son to Rome. Later, in face of His man- 
ifest innocence, repeatedly declared by 
Pilate, they were forced back to their charge 
of blasphemy; and from that they shifted 
to the threat of Caesar's wrath against the 
Procurator, if he should dare to thwart their 
revengeful desires. 

i Mark XIV, 65. 



56 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

The sight of the deep debasement and 
utter defilement to which they sank might 
lead one to despair of the possibility of hu- 
man nature ever rising from the abyss, were 
it not for the vision of the sublime, majestic 
nobility of the Christ, sincere and simple 
and single in purpose and act — the glory of 
our fallen race and our Salvation. 

Does the vileness of the duplicity of the 
Sanhedrim fill us with loathing? Does the 
splendor of the straightforwardness of the 
Master arouse our enthusiasm? God grant 
it! We do hate hypocrisy; we do detest 
double-dealing; we do abhor duplicity: and 
God be praised that we do ! Let us hate it 
all yet more and keep it from our lives. 
The number of those who are exact copies 
of the faithless, hypocritical Sanhedrists 
may be comparatively small, and there 
may be but little danger that we shall de- 
scend to such depths of infamy as theirs. 
But the degrees of half-conscious or almost 
unconscious dishonesty and devious con- 
duct are not at all outside the lives of count- 
less multitudes. In fact, it may be said 
with truth, that probably the only com- 
pletely honest and straightforward souls in 



DUPLICITY 57 

the whole wide world are the saints of God, 
canonized and uncanonized. Nearly every- 
body else is affected by some touch of du- 
plicity, by some milder form of self-decep- 
tion, which leads to what is unworthy. 

The saints look full to duty — and follow 
it : they go straight to God, no matter what 
obstacle bars the path. Their "eye is 
single"; and it is largely due to this single- 
ness of mind and heart that they are saints 
and that their "whole body is lightsome." 
They are not injured in their spiritual sight 
from the endeavor to keep two diverging 
objects within the range of their souls' 
vision. Still less are they blind in the midst 
of the brightness of the shining sun. They 
see, and they see straight: they are honest 
with God, with their fellow men, and with 
themselves; and in this simplicity they 
march on in sunshine or in storm without 
swerving from the path of uprightness. 
They have learned the secret of the courage 
of the outraged Christ. They have found 
the source of the strength that has made 
them stronger than themselves, stronger 
than the assaults of hell, stronger than the 
seductions of a world that knows not God. 



58 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

For our souls' sake and for the sake of the 
Blessed Master we must emulate them in 
their sincerity. In view of this a little self- 
examination will not be at all amiss. Are 
we without any taint of duplicity? It 
should be borne in mind that there is no ref- 
erence just now to out-and-out hypocrisy 
and to conscious double-dealing, but to lack 
of complete candor as to self, the neighbor, 
and God Himself. Are we quite free from 
this latter stain? 

If we are, one need not have the slightest 
hesitation in saying that we are either 
worthy of execration, as being like the 
demons, or worthy of the reverence that ac- 
crues to the chosen ones of God. Now, of 
course, it is clear that we are not devils. 
So, if we are altogether exempt from the 
touch of almost unconscious duplicity, we 
must be advancing along the way of sanctity 
like giants running a race. But, are we? 
True is the adage that " people like to be 
duped" ("like to be fooled," the saying has 
it) ; and truer still is the assertion that un- 
numbered multitudes of men and women are 
dupes of their own making. 

Self-deception is lamentably wide-spread ; 



DUPLICITY 59 

and poor human nature would rather hide 
its unworthy impulses under hypocritical 
pretence than face the naked vileness of its 
own meanness. Some there are, who, whilst 
they give free rein to the lowest panderings 
to passion, will prate about the necessity of 
satisfying the tendencies of nature, and will 
argue that God would not have given the 
yearning, if He did not mean the yearning 
to be satisfied. But, without further pur- 
suing the consideration of this sordid 
fallacy, which is almost too vile to touch; 
how many there are, who will be swept along 
unresisting by the flood of blinded anger, and 
salve their souls with the assurance that 
it is only zeal for truth and uprightness! 
The bitterness of mean resentment will 
poison the sweetness of association with 
others; and it is called justice. Pride will 
wrap its cold folds about a man; and he 
soothes himself with the comforting thought 
that it is only self-respect. Looseness of 
speech and manner will hurry him into the 
ways of pagan thought and action; and he 
tells himself that he is only avoiding nar- 
rowness and the squeamishness of a scrupu- 
lous weakling. A cringing fear will make 



60 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

him an arrant coward in the face of a false 
human-respect ; and he dignifies his craven 
feebleness with the name of considerateness. 

It is thus that Judas may have duped his 
blinded soul, until the horror of his crime 
tore the bandage from his startled eyes: it 
is thus that the Sanhedrists may have de- 
ceived themselves, until they brought on 
themselves the sacrilege of the shedding of 
the blood of the Incarnate God. 

Besides this cheating of oneself, duplicity 
goes on to the attempt to deceive in one's 
relations with others. It tries to cloak a 
fell purpose under the show of uprightness, 
to mask injustice under the appearance of 
justice, to disguise dishonor under the seem- 
ing of honor. Of a truth, the sad example 
of the Sanhedrim is followed today by many, 
albeit the craftiness is not, perhaps, so con- 
scious. Look at the anti-religious agitators 
of the world, and behold a duplicity like that 
of the faithless ones who outraged the 
Christ. Under the watchword of freedom 
they raised aloft the banner of attack 
against religion and morality. In France 
and Mexico they assaulted what they called 
clericalism; but the object of their insidious 



DUPLICITY 61 

onset was religion itself. "Secularize the 
schools" was the shibboleth of others; and 
that cry translated meant : "Do away with 
faith and worship ; tear down the standards 
of morality" (which can be upheld only by 
the strong will of Almighty God) ; "exalt 
man to absurd heights, to cast him down into 
unsoundable depths ; and let loose upon the 
world a horde of godless men and women, 
who will riot in their lusts and sink into un- 
speakable degradation. ' ' 

Duplicity? Even during the conduct of 
the war that was trying men's souls, double- 
dealing miscreants were abroad under the 
disguise of patriotism, driving the poisoned 
dart of religious dissension into a nation's 
heart. With the motto of liberty and jus- 
tice upon their lips they hypocritically de- 
clared that Catholics could not be loyal be- 
cause of their faith. And when the magnifi- 
cent fidelity of the sons of the Church had 
forced that lie down their throats, duplicity 
essayed to read into the whole-souled re- 
sponse to the call of country an attempt to 
seize upon the military power of the land in 
favor of a foreign potentate! 

Duplicity? Look at the Bolshevist 



62 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

hordes across the sea — workmen who would 
not work, soldiers who would not fight, ex- 
cept against the helpless and defenceless, as 
they did in Russia. There and elsewhere — 
yes, here in our own fair land, where the 
anarchistic elements are simmering before 
a great explosion, they prattle of liberty, 
when they mean license; of equality, when 
they yearn for the subjugation and exploita- 
tion of others; of fraternity, when they 
aspire to the oppression of the forces of 
order; of " living one's own life," when they 
look to the orgies of free-love. 

Duplicity? Look at the arrogant and 
pampered parasites of luxury, who are lay- 
ing the train for the Bolshevists to light. 
They flatter themselves that they are the 
conservative element of the country and 
boast that they stand for the principles of 
law and order. Yet their barbaric extrava- 
gance before the very eyes of the agonizing 
struggles of pauperism is fanning the fires 
of discontent. Their defiant assumption of 
right, because they have the might of money, 
is embittering the hearts of the subjugated 
proletariat. (This assumption of theirs, it 
must be borne in mind, is only another form 



DUPLICITY 63 

of the godless axiom which brought the na- 
tions to the throes of death in the gigantic 
world- war.) They calmly extort unjustifi- 
able profits from the necessities of their 
country or from the needs of their fellow 
men. They grind men down to the degrada- 
tion of mere machines. They coin the life 
blood of the poor into the wealth which is 
the support of their luxuriousness and the 
staff of their pride. And, with these crimes 
to their account, they pose as philan- 
thropists, whilst their own excesses are in 
large measure the cause or the occasion of 
the miseries which they condescend to re- 
lieve. What is all this but duplicity gone 
mad? Are such persons honest in their 
convictions ? If they are, they afford a hor- 
rible example of the extent to which half- 
conscious or almost unconscious deception 
can blind its victims. But, consciously, or 
unconsciously, " iniquity hath lied to itself." 
So much for men's attitude of mind in re- 
gard to themselves; so much for their rela- 
tions to their fellows. If from these we 
turn to the consideration of men's dealings 
with God, again we see the evil triumphs 
of duplicity. So few are thoroughly honest 



64 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

with God; so many are deplorably double- 
minded and double-handed in their conduct 
towards their Maker! 

Doesn't it often happen, that, perhaps al- 
most unconsciously, we reserve some hidden 
corner of our souls as an uncharted domain 
where neither we nor God may enter? 
Doesn't it sometimes come to pass, that we 
make compromises with God, and think that 
we are doing a great deal for Him, whilst 
at the same time we close our eyes to the 
real necessity, which calls for an unre- 
stricted surrender to Him? Doesn't it 
sometimes occur, that we endeavor to make 
of the affair of salvation a business proposi- 
tion, not unmarred by equivocation and 
subterfuge and "trading" 1 ? 

All this, no doubt, is not nattering to our 
self -appreciation ; but isn't it too sadly true ? 
We may know that unflinching straightfor- 
wardness requires us to lay the axe to the 
root of uncharitableness or gossiping de- 
traction or slander — and we make the reso- 
lution in God's sight to be very careful in 
our prayers and very faithful in the fulfill- 
ment of our religious obligations. This last 
is good; but we are dodging the issue. 



DUPLICITY 65 

Again, we may know that we are failing 
through a false sense of freedom in speech 
or action, that we are tarnishing, if not de- 
stroying, the lustre of pure cleanness of 
mind and tongue — and we offer to God the 
determination to come to the assistance of 
the needy poor and to soften the hard lot 
of the poverty-stricken. Once more, a 
blessed resolve; but we refuse to face the 
basic reality. And so it goes on. 

This condition of soul is fraught with 
fearful danger; for it lulls into a false se- 
curity and deceives with the unfounded as- 
surance of standing well with God. It is 
only less perilous than is the state of those, 
who, blinking the truth that the account 
with God may be called for at any moment, 
put off their return to Him until such time 
as their sweet good-pleasure shall determine 
upon. 

This is self-blinding and a species of 
double-dealing with God. May no man put 
off his return to God, because he tells him- 
self that he has no time, or because such a 
return means the severing of the loved, 
though loathsome, bonds of evil habit! If 
he does, he may come upon a day, when he 



66 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

will curse the greed that kept him from his 
Maker and the pride that lifted him up to 
crush him by his fall and the lust which 
forged for itself chains which eternity itself 
cannot wear away ; when grace will pass him 
by, not because God will not speak to him, 
but because he has so accustomed himself 
to close his ears to the voice of God, that he 
will not hear his Father's gentle whisper of 
love, and will be roused to endless remorse 
by the thunderbolt of divine anger. 

This same fate may come to us too, if we 
indulge in another form of duplicity to- 
wards God, which wrecks the lives of many 
in this world — if we do not avoid the occa- 
sions of sinful evil. To place ourselves in 
the way of sin, to court its occasions, to dally 
along the paths where bitter experience has 
shown us, or should have shown us, that the 
death of the soul lurks, and then, in the 
midst of a whirlwind of temptation which 
we ourselves have raised, to send up a half- 
hearted cry to God for help, is worse than 
folly. To tell our offended Lord and Master 
that we are sorry for our transgressions — 
and not to make up our minds, honestly and 
bravely, to keep away from the persons or 



DUPLICITY 67 

places or things that have been the reason 
of our fall, is to mock Him and to try to 
make a fool of Him, as we have already 
made fools of ourselves. 

If one knows that, as often as he has been 
with certain persons, he has fallen into sin ; 
and then, whilst saying that he does not in- 
tend to sin again, seeks out the company of 
those who have been very devils in his re- 
gard — what is this but to act a living lie? 
If we wince and writhe and repine and 
openly rebel against God's loving care in 
guarding us, through the Church's ministra- 
tion, from the poison of infidelity or im- 
morality; if, whilst we plume ourselves on 
our ability to meet the onsets of the enemies 
of religion and purity, we close our eyes 
to the danger, or perhaps the already accom- 
plished fatality, of the loss of our faith or of 
cleanness of mind and body — what is it all 
but self-deception which courts disaster and 
duplicity that runs to mockery of God? 
Again, though amusements are good and 
must have their place in the scheme of every 
life, if we know, that as often as we have 
indulged in certain forms of amusement or 
have gone to certain places of amusement, 



68 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

we have come away with our souls hef ouled 
with the mire of sin, we can no more sanely 
repeat the experiment, than we can thrust 
our hands into the hissing flames of a rag- 
ing fire and say that we do not wish to be 
burned. 

To attempt to trifle with God is folly ; and 
all this is trifling with Him. To try to make 
of the reception of God's sacraments a sort 
of " white-wash" proposition is but half -dis- 
guised sacrilege; and many of those who 
thus deceive themselves by flirting with the 
occasions of sin are making this attempt. 
To play the half-hypocrite in the sight of 
God, who reads the secrets of the heart and 
is not mocked with impunity, is tragedy it- 
self; and the self -cozened dishonest ones 
are playing the tragedy of which they will 
be the victims. 

Oh, for the singleness of vision and sim- 
plicity of purpose of the abandoned Christ 
as He stood before the Sanhedrim! Oh, 
for His straightforwardness in face of tor- 
tuous duplicity! Oh, for His strength as 
He gazed undaunted at His doom ! Oh, that 
the realization of what even our remote par- 
ticipation in the spirit of the Sanhedrists 



DUPLICITY 69 

and their servants has done against us and 
against our God would nerve us to better 
and nobler efforts ! 

Let the bitter memory of the wretched 
past be a clarion call to higher things: let 
the thought of the evil that we have done 
help us to abstain from transgression in the 
future. God knows, we have done harm 
enough already. God knows, we have been 
ungrateful enough already. God knows, we 
have stretched even infinite mercy to the 
breaking point already. For, our lack of 
honesty with God and our half-conscious 
self-deception ranged us by the side of the 
Sanhedrists, who mocked sincerity and 
justice; just as our defections from duty 
made us play the part of the savage servants, 
who tortured the condemned Christ during 
the long hours of that night of black deceit, 
when He was waiting in the chains of dur- 
ance vile — waiting for the morning to come 
that Borne might put the seal of her sentence 
upon His doom. 

Yes, enough of making common cause 
with the forces of evil unto our everlasting 
loss! Enough of duplicity in its many 
forms ! But to stand by the side of Christ, 



70 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

looking straight up to God, facing right on- 
ward in the way of duty, though the path 
lead on to Calvary itself — this is a glory 
worthy of a true man or woman, worthy of a 
child of God, worthy of a brother or sister 
of the God-Man, who is majestic in His 
splendid sincerity and magnificent in His 
unswerving candor. 



CHAPTER III 

PILATE AM) TIME-SERVING 

"For lie knew that for envy they had delivered 
him." Matt. XXVII, 18. 

"Whom will you that I release to you: Barabbas 
or Jesus that is called Christ?" Matt. XXVII, 17. 

1 ' I . . . find no cause in this man. ... I will chas- 
tise him therefore and release him." Luke XXIII, 
16. 

"But they were instant with loud voices requiring 
that he might be crucified : and their voices prevailed. ' ' 
Luke XXIII, 23. 

"If thou release this man, thou art not Cassar's 
friend: for whosoever maketh himself a king, speak- 
eth against Csesar." John XIX, 12. 

"And so Pilate being willing to satisfy the people 
. . . delivered up Jesus, when he had scourged him 
to be crucified." Mark XV, 15. 

During the sad progress of the Passion of 
Christ disloyalty was rampant in its evil 
might against Him. Down through the 
ages it has been active against what is good 
and godlike : it is unceasing in its machina- 
tions today, as it will be unto the end. 

71 



72 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

Duplicity too stained the honor of humanity, 
as it schemed against the Savior during 
those hours of the triumph of the powers of 
darkness: it has poisoned the springs of 
noble endeavor, as the years have been 
marked off on the calendar of time : it twists 
the strivings of humankind in our own day ; 
and it will try to do so until the day of wrath. 
These forces of evil, playing their unhal- 
lowed roles in the Undying Tragedy of the 
World, we have looked at, that we may hate 
and avoid them: in appreciative wonder- 
ment we have gazed upon the suffering Mas- 
ter 's magnificent example of loyalty and 
straightforwardness, that we may love and 
imitate Him. 

But there is still another force for evil 
which binds many a slave with the chains of 
degradation and drags many a victim down 
to his undoing. It is the spirit of time-serv- 
ing. This is the spirit of those who look 
only to the main chance of temporal advan- 
tage ; who will do right, so long as no sacri- 
fice is entailed ; who are so wrapped up with 
the littleness of self that even patriotism be- 
comes egotism; who will abandon every- 
thing and everyone — friends, family, repu- 



TIME-SEKVING 73 

tation, justice, and right — that their own 
personal ends may be subserved. 

Often this time-serving goes hand in hand 
with hypocrisy and duplicity, and tries to 
cloak its vileness under a fair exterior. But 
sometimes it disdains even this mask of 
decency, and brazenly follows the lead of 
concentrated selfishness. It will cling to 
duty — unless this is too hard. It will stand 
for right — unless this brings the sting of 
pain. It will place itself on the side of up- 
rightness — unless this costs something or 
demands the foregoing of some selfish ad- 
vantage. 

Against this veritable bane of honest and 
brave striving towards noble achievement 
our Blessed Lord gave His example of utter 
unselfishness, and over and over again 
preached His doctrine of complete self-for- 
getfulness. When He was but a boy He left 
Mary and Joseph without a word, and 
stayed in the temple whilst His parents 
sought Him sorrowing. And when they 
had found Him and had lovingly remon- 
strated with Him upon what He had done, 
He spoke those words which give the key- 
note to the conduct of His entire mortal life : 



74 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

"Did you not know that I must be about my 
Father's business?" 1 To do His Father's 
will, to be about His Father's business — 
that was His life during the retirement of 
Nazareth; it was His life during the years 
of the public ministry, when He preached 
"the Kingdom of God" and prepared the 
means for the continuance of His mission 
of love; it was His life during the pain- 
crowded hours of His awful Passion. 
Nothing could be farther from the great soul 
of the Master than the mean, selfish seek- 
ing of individual temporal profit. The 
spirit of time-serving He spurned and 
crushed beneath the heroism of His absolute 
devotedness to the interests of God and man. 
And the type of the spirit of time- 
serving — where shall we find it in the record 
of the sufferings of the God-Man % In Pon- 
tius Pilate. As Judas embodies disloyalty; 
as the Sanhedrim symbolizes duplicity; so 
Pilate personifies time-serving ; and his con- 
flict with the Jews is the foreshadowing of 
the losing fight against unrighteousness by 
fickle, faithless conscience. 

i Luke II, 49. 



TIME-SERVING 75 

What sort of a man was this Pontius 
Pilate? Was he a coward? Not so; 
though in the handling of the trial of Jesus 
Christ he was an arrant coward. Haughty 
he was, and not a man to balk at ordinary- 
difficulties, when his own personal advan- 
tage demanded strength of purpose or ac- 
tion. He had not managed the Jews with 
any delicate consideration; he had not 
feared them; and the streets of Jerusalem 
had run red with human blood, when with 
uncompromising decision he had crushed 
their opposition to himself. Was he lack- 
ing in experience of men or things? Not 
at all. He was a plain, blunt man, honest 
in the main, strong as a rule, brave, im- 
petuous and headlong. He was a soldier, 
and sprung from a race of soldiers. But he 
was a politician, in the depraved meaning 
of the word ; he was a time-server, who for 
fear of Caesar and to please the people was 
ready to forget honor and right and justice. 
A time-server face to face in conflict with 
the fanatical, crafty members of the San- 
hedrim and with the infuriated populace! 
These were the antagonists in the fight of 
which Jesus Christ was the object and the 



,76 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

prize. And the contest which figured forth 
the battle that is ever renewed as the ages 
go by? Let us witness it. 

The condemnation against Christ had 
been spoken by the supreme council of the 
Jews. The remaining hours of the night 
had passed with the jailers of the Master 
venting their scorn for Him in vile and 
brutal sport. Morning dawned; and the 
members of the Sanhedrim held another 
hurried council, either in the hall of 
Caiaphas' palace on Mount Sion or within 
the precincts of the temple on the heights 
of Mount Moriah. They ratified the sen- 
tence of the preceding night ; they arranged 
details for the furtherance of their murder- 
ous scheme. 

For, all was not yet safe. There to the 
northeast of the temple rose the frowning 
massiveness of the citadel erected by the 
first Herod. The Antonia it was called — 
the fortress-palace which the Roman gov- 
ernor occupied at times of greater solemni- 
ties, that he might keep watchful guard over 
a conquered, but untrusted people. It was, 
in fact, more of a menace than a protection ; 
and the flash of the morning light from the 



TIME-SERVING 77 

spears of the Koman legionaries, sentinels 
over a subject race, brought home to the 
hating hearts of the Jewish priests the bitter 
thought that the power of life and death 
had passed from the judges of Israel. 
"The sceptre shall not be taken away from 
Juda . . . till he come that is to be sent": * 
so ran the prophecy. That sceptre had 
passed forever : He that was to be sent had 
"come unto his own and his own received 
him not. ' ' 2 And in the shadow of the tower 
of Antony that spoke of Him they 
were recalled to the realization of the 
humiliating fact that Eome must seal 
His doom. Pilate must be forced to 
ratify their sentence. Though truth would 
not prevail, craft must have its way; and 
then the Roman gibbet of the cross for Him 
who said : "I am the Christ, the Son of the 
living God " ! 3 On, then, to Pilate ! 

"Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to 
the governor's hall . . . and they went not 
into the hall that they might not be de- 
filed." 4 The soldiers of Rome must have 

i Genesis XLIX, 10. 
2 John I, 11. 
8 Cf. Matt. XXVI, 64. 
4 John XVIII, 28. 



78 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

observed the excitement and must have 
given notice, so that Pilate was not unpre- 
pared for the appearance of the priest- 
headed mob, as they brought their prisoner 
to the fortress. And Pilate went out to 
them. 

As he walked along the marble corridors 
of his palace with his eyes resting upon the 
immovable ranks of the guards and upon 
the flashing uniforms of centurions and tri- 
bunes, his face must have brightened with 
the consciousness of power and his heart 
must have beat high with the thrilling 
thought that he was a Roman — nay, that 
here he was Rome. Yes, he was master 
here; and his eyes would have flashed with 
indignant fire, had anyone dared to tell him 
that he would play the craven's part. 
Proud and cold was the glance with which 
he swept the restless throng, until his gaze 
was held by the sight of the Man bound with 
chains, but calm and dignified and breathing 
forth an air of sorrowful majesty. Did 
those chains speak a silent threat to him, the 
judge? 

"What accusation bring you against this 



TIME-SERVING 79 

man?" 1 were the sharp words with which 
he greeted them. Accusation! They had 
not come to accuse. They had come for the 
ratification of the sentence which they had 
already passed. Accusation? They had 
no charge which would bear the scrutiny of 
Rome : their own charge of blasphemy would 
be passed by in silent contempt. So, with 
a superciliousness and a boldness and an air 
of injured innocence, that evil knows so well 
how to assume, they said: "If he were not 
a malefactor we would not have delivered 
him up to thee." 2 Quick as thought and 
sharp as a sword came Pilate 's sneering an- 
swer: "Take him you and judge him ac- 
cording to your law" : 3 "if you will make no 
accusation, I will conduct no trial. Rome 
will not be the blind dupe in the perpetration 
of crime." There was firmness! If Pilate 
had held to that course, he would never have 
been guilty of the blood of the God-Man. 
For, guilty he was. Judas was guilty; the 
Sanhedrim was guilty; but so too was 
Pontius Pilate : and the crime is laid at his 

i John XVIII, 29. s John XVIII, 31. 

2 John XVIII, 30. 



80 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

door by the undying declaration of the 
Church's children through the passing cen- 
turies, as they say in the words of the Creed, 
"He suffered under Pontius Pilate." 

Stung to madness by Pilate's insistence 
upon an accusation and whipped on by their 
fear of losing their victim, yet clinging to 
their crafty deceit, the Jews charged Christ 
with three crimes — and as they made the 
charges they lied, and they knew that they 
lied. "We have found this man pervert- 
ing our nation, and forbidding to give 
tribute to Caesar, and saying that he is Christ 
the King. ' ' * He perverteth the nation ? 
A lie! His entire life had been one of 
beneficence to the people: His doctrine was 
holy and uplifting. The scribes and Phari- 
sees, the Sadducees and Herodians had 
tried to lay hold of some word or deed of 
His to turn against Him, and had desisted 
in the forced acknowledgment of defeat. 
He f orbiddeth to give tribute to Caesar ? A 
lie! They knew that, in order to entrap 
Him, they had asked, "Is it lawful to give 
tribute to Caesar?" and He had said, 
"Render to Caesar the things that are 

iLuke XXIII, 2. 



TIME-SERVING 81 

Caesar % and to God the things that are 
God's." 1 

At these two charges Pilate must have 
smiled in contempt. He knew what was go- 
ing on in his province, He knew who were 
causing disturbance. He knew who were 
ill-affected to the sway of Rome. And to as- 
sert that here was a man, who, unknown 
to the Procurator, was sowing the seeds of 
rebellion, was to offer an insult to the 
thoroughness of that officer's administra- 
tion. 

Their third charge, however, was a 
masterpiece of their double-dealing crafti- 
ness: "He says that he is Christ the 
King." Christ did claim to be the Messiah, 
the King of Israel ; and though Pilate would 
not listen to the charge of blasphemy, under 
which they had condemned Christ, he must 
heed an accusation of a claim to kingship. 
Yet, in the sense in which they made the 
charge, it was another lie. Why, when they 
would have taken Him by force and made 
Him king, He had fled away into the 
mountain alone. 2 But they were right in 

iMatt. XXII, 17-21. 
2 Cf . John VI, 15. 



82 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

thinking that Pilate must notice this accusa- 
tion. He would not discuss the matter 
with them ; but the prisoner he would inter- 
rogate. " Pilate therefore went into the 
hall and called Jesus.'' 1 Into that hall 
Christ went — and the judge and the pris- 
oner stood face to face alone ! 

That scene was like an anticipation of the 
judgment at the end of time. The accused 
and the judge seemed to have changed 
places. For, as Pilate looked into the face 
of the Christ, as he felt the calm, deep gaze 
of the prisoner bore its way into his very 
soul, a feeling of awe came over him; the 
figures of his guards seemed to vanish; the 
trappings of his all but royal pomp seemed 
to fall away; and he stood in the nakedness 
of his soul before a mightier spirit. The 
great one of this world seemed so small in 
the presence of that pale, majestic Man who 
stood before him and gazed into his heart's 
depths. 

"Art thou the King of the Jews?" said 
Pilate. "Sayest thou this of thyself, or 
have others told it thee of me?" replied the 
Master. "Am I a Jew?" curtly the Gov- 

i John XVIII, 33. 



TIME-SERVING 83 

ernor spoke; "What hast thou done?" A 
King? Yes, Christ was a king; but His 
kingdom was not of this world. "My king- 
dom is not of this world." "Art thou a 
king then?" "Thou sayest it. For this 
was I born, and for this came I into the 
world that I might give testimony to the 
truth." The king of truth, of holiness, of 
love! "A king of truth?" mused Pilate: 
"What is truth?" 1 Though he did not 
wait for the answer, he made up his mind 
that he must save this Man of men. And, 
as he went out to the Jews, a silence fell 
upon the boisterous throng ; and Pilate said 
in a clear, cold voice: "I find no cause in 
him." 2 

Did he release the prisoner? That was 
the next step to take after the declaration 
of His innocence. Release Him! Ah! the 
time-server was beginning the series of 
compromises that would bring him to dis- 
aster. 

The crowd heard in silence the words of 
the Procurator. Then, after a moment of 
stupefied wonder, their angry hatred broke 

1 John XVIII, 33-38. 

2 John XVIII, 38. 



84 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

forth in fresh cries and complaints and half- 
veiled threats. "He stirreth up the people 
teaching throughout all Judea, beginning 
from Galilee to this place/ ' * 

Now, time-server! Galilee? Here at 
last was light in the darkness : here was an 
easy way for Pilate to shift all responsibil- 
ity from himself in this matter. Galilee! 
That was the portion of the country where 
Rome allowed Herod to play the king. 
Pilate would send Christ to Herod; and, 
whilst freeing himself from the necessity of 
an unpopular verdict in favor of the ac- 
cused, or from the crime of participating 
in the perversion of justice against Him, he 
would appeal to the vanity of the Idumean 
by this mark of honor. So, "he sent him 
away to Herod, who was also himself at 
Jerusalem in those days." 2 And Pilate 
watched with relief the departure of the 
cortege, as it started out on its way to 
Herod's palace, and he returned to his own 
quarters with a sigh of gratification. 

But the Governor 's peace was short-lived. 
After mocking the prisoner, Herod sent 

iLuke XXIII, 5. 
s Luke XXIII, 7. 



TIME-SEKVING 85 

Him back to Pilate. The latter, notified 
by his soldiers of the return of the mob that 
clamored at his gates, went out again to 
them and to the judgment which he was 
forced to face. Why did he hesitate? 
Why, with the might of Eome at his back, 
did he not dare to do justice in the case of 
one unjustly accused? Why did not his 
honest vision of right, as he had looked upon 
the nameless majesty of the prisoner, nerve 
him to act up to the conviction which had 
been forced into his very soul ? The answer 
is — time-serving. 

Pilate greeted the priests and people with 
the words: "I find no cause in this man. 
. . . No, nor Herod neither. For I sent you 
to him, and behold nothing worthy of death 
is done to him. ' ' * Once more, a bold state- 
ment of the truth; but then the vacillation 
of the time-server again came to the front, 
as he temporized with an angry and insist- 
ent foe. "But you have a custom that I 
should release one unto you at the pasch": 2 
"Whom will you that I release to you, 
Barabbas, or Jesus that is called Christ ?" 3 

iLuke XXIII, 14, 15. s Matt. XXVII, 17. 

2 John XVIII, 39. 



86 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

Now, Barabbas was a robber and a 
murderer. 1 

That was Pilate's game — by limiting their 
choice, to force them to choose Christ for 
freedom. The spirit of time-serving was 
leading him where it always leads its vic- 
tims, to compromises, which in turn pave 
the way for complete dereliction of duty. 
He was losing ground before the violence of 
the priests and people, whilst they were 
gaining more strength and more confident 
power as the conflict proceeded. The night 
before, the Sanhedrists had been practically 
alone against the Christ; they were so no 
longer. Before it had been only the priests ; 
now it was priests and people. Before, the 
mob had been respectful, if not actually sub- 
servient and cringing; now they were 
haughty and defiant. A strong, decisive 
course of action on Pilate 's part would have 
crushed their uprising at the outset; his 
legionaries would have scattered the rioters, 
as the wind scatters the chaff: now that 
Pilate had temporized, he could no more 
stop the stream of their hate-swollen wrath 
than a barrier of straw could stem the 

iCf. John XVIII, 40; Mark XV, 7. 



TIME-SERVING 87 

mountain torrent. Crush evil at the begin- 
ning or it will crush you ! That is the lesson 
which Pilate's time-serving policy teaches 
all of us. God grant that we may learn the 
lesson and never forget it! 

"Whom will you that I release to you, 
Barabbas, or Jesus that is called Christ V 1 1 
Which would they choose? The innocent 
or the guilty? The upright or the repro- 
bate ? the great Son of God and the humble 
Son of man or the condemned outlaw and 
sentenced murderer? There was no room 
for choice ; and Pilate meant it so. Yet, at 
the instigation of the false-hearted leaders, 
the whole people cried out: " Release unto 
us Barabbas! Away with this man! 2 
Crucify Him!" 3 Crucify Him! Three 
times Pilate spoke to them, desiring to re- 
lease Christ; three times he urged that he 
found no cause in Him : but their victorious 
hate would not reason, and it hurled at him 
the shrieking demand, "Let him be cruci- 
fied!" 4 The time-server had been forced 

iMatt. XXVII, 17. 

2 Luke XXIII, 18. 

3 Luke XXIII, 21. 

4 Matt. XXVII, 22, 23. 



88 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

back another step ; he had lost another fight 
in the contest unto death. 

This sad scene has been reenacted many 
a time as the years have gone by. Over and 
over again Christ has "come unto his own 
and his own received him not." Over and 
over again the same struggle has been 
fought in the human heart. In the souls of 
men conscience, 1 like another Pilate, has sat 
upon the throne, the representative, not of 
the highest earthly power, but of the great 
God Himself. Before that throne the surg- 
ing mob of evil passions has gathered in a 
fury as unchecked as that of the Jews. 
Fickle conscience has asked them which they 
would have, Barabbas or Christ — a vile 
pleasure, a sinful gain, a degrading honor 
or God's law and God's love. With insane 
insistence these passions have shrilled, 
"Not this man, but Barabbas! Away with 
this man ! Crucify him ! ' ' and faithless con- 
science has given way before their wild at- 

i Obviously "conscience" is used in its wider and more gen- 
eral sense, as in the expressions, "purity of conscience," "de- 
filement of conscience." It thus refers not only to the intel- 
lect, with its practical dictate about right and wrong, but 
also, and especially, to the will, with its power of choosing 
or rejecting good and evil. 



TIME-SERVING 89 

tack. But had that same beaten, defiled 
conscience shown strength and decision in 
the beginning of the struggle, those passions 
would not have gained the impetuous force 
that was all but resistless ; had it at the out- 
set crushed those passions with a firm, un- 
merciful hand, the story of the repetition of 
Christ's rejection would not have had to be 
recorded in the annals of God's book of 
judgment. 

After the failure of his artifice for 
Christ's liberation Pilate called for water, 
and going up to the judgment-seat he 
washed his hands in the sight of all, saying : 
"I am innocent of the blood of this just man. 
Look you to it." * Water might wash his 
hands ; self-deception might soothe his heart 
into the counterfeit peace of having hon- 
estly done his duty: but water could not 
cleanse the guilt of blood from his black- 
ened soul, nor could the false peace forever 
keep the nightmare of crime from the depths 
of outraged sincerity. Pilate's time-serv- 
ing had led him to the point where Christ, 
though innocent, was doomed. For, though 
not yet condemned, doomed He was, when 

i Matt. XXVII, 24. 



90 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

the hoarse shout rang through the arches of 
the palace hall : ' ' His blood be upon us and 
upon our children." * 

But stay! another expedient might yet 
win the day. "I find no cause of death in 
him: I will chastise him therefore, and let 
him go." 2 Here was another horror of in- 
justice brought forth from the Governor's 
shifting policy. "I find no cause in him: 
therefore I will chastise him." It was an- 
other concession to the mob, a tempting 
morsel thrown before a maddened, blood- 
thirsty beast. Besides, Pilate would hu- 
miliate Christ by this most abasing punish- 
ment, thus (so he hoped) satisfying the 
scorn and hatred of the Jews; and at the 
same time he would reduce the Victim to 
such a state of forlorn misery that the people 
would be appeased and let Him go. 

So, he gave Christ to the soldiers to be 
scourged. And they scourged Him and 
crowned Him with thorns; and then at 
Pilate's order they brought the bleeding and 
broken wreck of humanity before him. 
Tottering and fainting the tortured, out- 

i Matt. XXVII, 25. 
2 Luke XXIII, 22. 



TIME-SERVING 91 

raged Master came again before the Gov- 
ernor. Pilate was not the man to be easily 
disturbed by the sight of blood or wounds. 
He was a soldier, and time and time again 
he must have gazed upon the carnage of the 
battle-field: he had seen the games and the 
fights of the arena where men were butch- 
ered "to make a Roman holiday.' 7 But he 
could not gaze unmoved upon the mangled 
Christ. To the honor of his manhood he 
thought that no one could look upon this 
lacerated Man and ask for more revenge. 
Accordingly he advanced to the portico that 
gave out upon the sea of faces, and Christ 
stumbled on after him, supported by the 
soldiers. The outcries of the people ceased ; 
for they saw that Pilate would speak with 
them. * 'Behold I bring him forth unto you, 
that you may know that I find no cause in 
him. " x Then he stood aside, brought 
Christ to the front of the platform and 
pointed Him out to them with the words, 
"Behold the Man!" 2 

Yet, even as he spoke, their roar of hate 
broke forth like the deep-toned bellow of 

iJohn XIX, 4. 
2 John XIX, 5. 



92 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

the tempest : ' ' Crucify him, crucify him l" 1 
And Pilate saw what a fool he had been. 
He had sunk to the folly of attempting to 
conciliate fiends: he had stretched justice 
beyond the snapping point : he had lowered 
his manhood to plead with unreasoning 
obstinacy. And the result of his weakness 
and vacillation and time-serving — what 
was it? The mad cry, " Crucify him!" 
Stung to red-hot wrath, he said to them: 
' ' Take him you and crucify him ; for I find 
no cause in him": 2 "do you who have the 
hate of devils and who declare that he is 
guilty take him and crucify him, if you have 
the power. But you have not the power; 
and you would force me, who have the 
power, to bow to your will and to violate 
justice by crucifying a man who is innocent : 
I find no cause in him." In anger, sharp 
and hot as the Governor's, they shrieked 
back: "We have a law, and according to 
the law he ought to die, because he made 
himself the Son of God." 3 

The Son of God! The words came to 

i John XIX, 6. 

2 Id. ib. 

3 Id. ib., v. 7. 



TIME-SERVING 93 

Pilate like "a bolt from the blue." The 
Son of God! "When Pilate therefore had 
heard this saying, he feared the more." 1 
He had feared to condemn an innocent man : 
now he feared that he might be condemning 
one who was more than man. The Son of 
God? Pilate must ask the question which 
was trembling on his lips. So, from the 
tribune on which they stood he again led 
Jesus within the hall and said to Him: 
"Whence art thou 1 ?" 2 It was no longer 
"What hast thou done?" but "Whence art 
thou?" The Governor leaned forward, his 
heart throbbing with excitement, his eyes 
staring in the intensity of the gaze riveted 
upon the prisoner. "But Jesus gave him 
no answer. ' ' 3 Terror and irritation turned 
Pilate's anxiety into threats. "Speakest 
thou not to me? Knowest thou not that I 
have power to crucify thee, and I have 
power to release thee ? " 4 But threats could 
not break the strong spirit of the Christ. 
He looked Pilate full in the face and said: 
"Thou shouldst have no power against me 

iJohn XIX, v. 8. 

2 Id. ib., v. 9. 

3 Id. ib., v. 9. 
*Id. ib., v. 10. 



94 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

unless it were given thee from above." 1 
No; Christ did not flinch; He did not fall 
back before the might of Rome's representa- 
tive. He gave Pilate clearly to understand, 
that, should he prove recreant to his duty, he 
would be answerable for his abuse of power 
to the God of all. And, shrinking from the 
consequences which would come upon him, 
Pilate finally made up his mind to release 
this prisoner who might be more than man. 

With his secret written on his face he 
went out to the people. They read that 
secret ere his lips had uttered it, and they 
launched the last bolt of their hate and 
craft. People as well as priests thundered 
at him : "If thou release this man, thou art 
not Caesar's friend. For whosoever maketh 
himself a king, speaketh against Caesar." 2 

That ended the struggle. Before the be- 
wildered mind of Pilate rose the form of the 
master of Rome, the ambitious, pitiless 
Tiberius. Pilate could see these devilish 
Jews bending the servile knee before the 
august majesty of the Emperor and hissing 
into his ear the information that his trusted 



Uohn XIX, v. 11. 
2 Id. ib., v. 12. 



TIME-SERVING 95 

governor of Judea allowed an upstart to 
play the king with impunity. He saw the 
frown on the Emperor's brow; he heard the 
sharp words that spoke of deposition and 
death for the faithless minister; and, as 
imagination hurried on upon fearful wings, 
he could feel the stroke of the sword — and 
after that, the darkness. No; not that! 
For fear of Caesar and to please the people 
he would sacrifice the Christ. Pilate's per- 
sonal interests must not be jeopardized for 
a Utopian ideal. The time-server had lost 
the fight: naught remained but the official 
pronouncement of sentence. 

There is the story of time-serving: there 
is the abyss to which it led, and to which it 
leads. The tiger shout of the Jews, "Away 
with him! Crucify him!" was the cry of 
sin, demanding the death of Jesus ; and ever 
since then that cry has rung down the cen- 
turies. Heaven help us ! the clamor of our 
own evil deeds swelled the roar of hate 
against the Savior. In our lives and in the 
lives of others the spirit of time-serving has 
repeatedly brought about the triumph of 
wrong against the Christ. 

As we see what it has directly caused or 



96 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

indirectly led to, let us fortify our souls 
against its fell influence; let us keep our- 
selves, and others whom we can affect, free 
from its baneful blight. On all sides we find 
the spirit of time-serving, either rampant 
in unblushing shamelessness or concealed 
under fair-seeming forms. 

The influence of this evil genius in the 
realm of politics need hardly be referred to. 
So often have men witnessed the desire of 
personal profit or of party gain triumph 
over public good or national interests; so 
often have they beheld welfare of country 
crowded out of the place of first considera- 
tion, that they have become almost callous 
and look for such things almost as a matter 
of course. If, in public life and in commer- 
cial relations, a man is big enough to put 
time-serving behind him, he is considered 
not only an honest man, but almost a hero. 
God be praised! in the struggle for liberty, 
which was so lately crowned with a victori- 
ous peace, there were many who measured 
up to the standards of honest greatness and 
looked at things in their true perspective. 
But, even then alas ! there were not wanting 
those who thought so much of self and so 



TIME-SERVING 97 

little of country and of God, that they could 
batten like vultures on the carnage of war 
and pile their treasure heaps high with 
profits, wrung from the need of the nation 
and the distress of mankind. With such, it 
was not only duplicity; it was self-centred 
time-serving. 

But, without dwelling on this horrible 
perversion of decency and patriotism, we 
may profitably refer in passing to another 
phase of this same wretched spirit — I mean, 
the placing of the State on the throne of 
the Deity. Pilate did that. The Master's 
motto was: " Render therefore to Caesar 
the things that are Caesar's, and to God the 
things that are God's." But Pilate, in his 
love of self, would give unto Caesar even the 
things that belonged to God. 

And there are many Pilates today. How 
many so exalt the State that they make it 
the source of all rights and the fountain- 
head of all justice! Property rights'? 
They come from the State. Marriage 1 It 
is a civic institution and subject to the com- 
plete control of civic authority. Life it- 
self? Not only the forfeited life of the 
criminal homicide and the traitor, but the 



98 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

life of little innocents, who may be unable 
to advance the community's material inter- 
ests, and the life of the helpless and useless 
aged or of incurable sufferers — all these are 
considered to be within the province of State 
authority, to be snuffed out by murder, 
masked under the fair-sounding term of 
"euthanasia," Such things may appear 
profitable, if one looks through the short- 
sighted glasses of temporal prosperity ; and 
the material advantages may be a motive for 
the time-server. But the same standard 
would justify Pilate's perversion of justice; 
for he too, whilst giving to Csesar the things 
that were God's, derived temporal and ma- 
terial advantage from the murder of the 
God-Man. 

We do owe much to the State — call it our 
country, if you will. We owe it obedience 
to its just laws. We owe it loyalty in its de- 
mands upon our service, whether in labor or 
money or life itself. Yes, we owe it the 
deepest and sincerest patriotism. And we 
owe all this, because we must give to God the 
things that are His. It is God's right that 
we give all this to our loved land. 

How well Catholics have measured up to 



TIME-SERVING 99 

these calls upon their patriotism is recorded 
on the pages of unbiased history from the 
birth of the republic to the present time. 
During the days of the revolutionary strug- 
gle, our first war, Catholics deserved the 
praise which was given them by the Father 
of his Country. And in the war just ended, 
whilst we numbered hardly one-fifth of the 
population of the country, nearly one-half 
of America's fighting men on land and sea 
were Catholics ; nearly one-half of the little 
white crosses over the graves beyond the 
ocean keep guard over the mortal, and may- 
be mangled, remains of the sons of Mother 
Church. 

Without a doubt, we know what we owe 
our country — and thank God! we give it. 
But we also know what we do not owe to 
any State ; and in very love for our land let 
us see to it, that we do not render such things 
as would cripple us and ruin it. We do not 
owe subservience to ruthless violation of 
rights guaranteed by the Constitution. We 
do not owe servile subjection to measures 
which, without warrant, try to curb the 
inalienable liberty of free-born men. We 
do not owe supine acquiescence to the effort 



100 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

to foist upon an unthinking multitude an 
autocracy of education, which, to the gradual 
extinction of liberty and justice, would ar- 
rogate to itself the iron-clad regulation of 
all education according to the whims of an 
endowed bureaucracy. To hug the phan- 
tom of security, when attempts are being 
made to outlaw the Catholic school-system, 
which has been built upon the foundation 
of abnegation and cemented with the tears 
and blood of sacrifice; to refuse to defend 
this bulwark of Catholic life; nay, to lift 
the eyebrow of scornful condemnation to- 
wards those who are alive to the real needs 
of the day, and to class them with disturbers 
of the calm peace of ignoble inactivity — 
what is it all, but the cowardice of the time- 
server and the weakness of another Pilate % 
And in this connection, a merited tribute 
of condemnation may well be paid to another 
class of educational time-servers. There 
are those who expose the growing youth of 
the country (not merely the infants, but 
those in secondary and higher courses) to 
the danger of the poisonous atmosphere of 
irreligious or infidel Colleges and Universi- 
ties, in the smug assurance that all will be 



TIME-SERVING 101 

well and that their sons and daughters will 
profit by the social advantages which they 
will find as they rub elbows with the scions 
of millionaires and potentates. The fallacy 
of their hopes need not detain us ; the prick- 
ing of the empty bubble of sordid ambitions 
need not distress us. But, even if the hopes 
were realized by the grasping of social 
emoluments not otherwise to be obtained; 
even if the vaulting schemes were crowned 
with golden fruition — what of the cost? 
Indifference with regard to the faith, if not 
its entire extinction; loss of the stainless 
delicacy of untainted virtue ; the lowering of 
the standards for the conduct of life — what 
of these? If these resulted but once in a 
thousand times, who but the veriest fool or 
the most hardened time-server would dare 
to take the risk, if he visioned the Passion 
of Jesus Christ % And if the proportion of 
utter ruin and complete failure is so high 
as to stagger the thoughtful-minded (and it 
is), how will they dare to face an angry 
Judge and render an account of the souls 
of those whom they themselves, with a smile 
on their lips, have sent to their death? 
Without doubt, it is a sorry subject, this 



102 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

following out of the ravages of the spirit 
of time-serving; but at least it may put us 
on our guard and arouse us to stand fast 
for God and good. If we trace this same 
spirit of time-serving in the more ordinary 
details of daily life and in the minutiae of 
common happenings, again we see its devas- 
tating work in the effects of weak human re- 
spect. 

For instance, the time for Mass may sum- 
mon us to the temple of God to take part 
in the offering of the tremendous sacrifice 
of the Body and Blood of the Victim of the 
world upon the unbloody Calvary of the al- 
tar — and some friends drop in with an in- 
vitation to an outing. In such a case, have 
we ever through fear of appearing narrow- 
minded or unappreciative repressed any 
mention of where our duty called — and 
turned our backs on God? Had the sum- 
mons of the church bell called us to a busi- 
ness engagement which would have brought 
us golden profit, we would have given no 
second thought to any claim of courtesy, 
but would promptly have told our friends 
that we could not go with them; but — 
it is only God who calls, and God does 



TIME-SERVING 103 

ask such hard things! Again, have we 
ever on a Friday sat down to table with 
non-Catholic friends, who knew quite 
well that we were Catholics and knew 
just as well what our Church demanded 
of us? If then meat was served to us, 
have we said to ourselves, that we could 
not bear to embarrass our hosts — and have 
we therefore quietly spurned the command 
of God's Church, prescribing that we offer 
the little penance of abstinence in memory 
of Him who died for us? If the viands 
were poisoned and we knew it, we need not, 
of course, raise an outcry, especially if the 
poison were ignorantly or innocently put 
before us ; but would we hesitate about leav- 
ing untouched what would mean death to 
us? But — it is only a command of the 
Church, and therefore only a command of 
God ! Why, the mean weakness goes to the 
extent of countenancing, at least by obse- 
quious following, styles of dress and forms 
of amusement which would be more in place 
in the gaiety of pagan unrestraint and 
heathen luxury, than in the lives of those 
whose standard is the cross and whose Savior 
is the Crucified: and it does it, not unfre- 



104 THE UNDYING TEAGEDY 

quently, because not to do so would mean 
to be left behind in the procession of fashion 
and to be labeled as hopelessly out-of-date ! 

It is the selfish meanness, the arrogant 
self-centredness, the miserable shifting, the 
execrable time-serving of Pontius Pilate, 
that is thus lived again in human lives and 
brings to naught the splendid atonement of 
the Christ. 

Is greatness of soul dead? Is the fire of 
heart which can flame up into burning hero- 
ism a thing forgotten or unknown? Shall 
we stand by the side of Jesus Christ? or 
by the side of the recreant Procurator of 
Rome? On one side or the other we must 
be; for the Master spoke the necessity long 
ago, when He said: ''He that is not with 
me is against me." * Oh, to be by the side 
of the Blessed Lord, though His portion is 
pain and sorrow, rather than by the side of 
His foes, though their lot be earthly joy and 
comfort! "Better one day in thy courts 
above thousands. I have chosen to be an ab- 
ject in the house of my God, rather than to 
dwell in the tabernacles of sinners." 2 

iMatt. XII, 30. 
2Ps. LXXXIII, 11. 



TIME-SERVING 105 

Yes, it is better far; for, even amidst the 
black clouds of injustice and meanness, the 
Christ is resplendent with the glory of true 
manhood, as He is sublime with the majesty 
of divinity. And as by His sanctifying 
grace we are sharers of His Godhead, so by 
the uplifting of His actual grace we can be 
brave enough to partake of the courage of 
His superb manhood and to forget little tem- 
poral emoluments, as we fulfill the demands 
of duty and hold fast to God's eternal in- 
terests. 

After all, "no man can serve two mas- 
ters. . . . You cannot serve God and Mam- 
mon." 1 Those are the words of Christ. 
And Paul was in full accord with this holy, 
though hard, doctrine, when he said: "If 
I yet pleased men, I should not be the ser- 
vant of Christ." 2 We cannot serve riches, 
and be the subjects of God: we cannot be 
the slaves of lust, and remain the children 
of our Father in heaven: we cannot cringe 
before the opinion of our fellow mortals, 
and hold our heads erect in the sight of the 
Most High : we cannot be led by the detest- 

i Matt. VI, 24. 
zGalat. I. 10. 



106 THE UNDYING TEAGEDY 

able spirit of time-serving, which places our 
personal, material advantage ahead of the 
claims of duty and the rights of God, and 
still deserve a place by the Christ in His 
heroic resistance to evil. 

God grant that our part may not be with 
Pontius Pilate, beaten and disgraced by the 
enemies of the Master, but with Jesus 
Christ our Lord, majestic in misfortune, 
glorious in trial, resplendent in adversity, 
triumphant in the depths of ignominy! 



CHAPTER IV 

HEROD AND LUST 

"It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother's 
wife." Mark VI, 18. 

"And Herod seeing Jesus was very glad; for . . . 
he hoped to see some sign wrought by him. And he 
questioned him in many words. But he answered him 
nothing." Luke XXIII, 8, 9. 

"And Herod with his army set him at naught and 
mocked him, putting on him a white garment. ' ' Luke 
XXIII, 11. 

In the light of the Passion of our Blessed 
Lord we are studying the forces of evil 
which are assailing the souls of men and 
drawing them away from goodness unto 
their destruction. Disloyalty, duplicity, 
time-serving — all these we have considered. 
They are terrible engines of destruction and 
they play their hateful part in the unend- 
ing drama of the world, just as Judas and 
the Sanhedrim and Pilate contributed to the 
crushing of the God-Man. 

But there is another fatal agency whose 

107 



108 THE UNDYING TKAGEDY 

track down the ages is marked with deso- 
lation and death. It is probably but too 
sadly true, that its slaves outnumber the 
victims of any other enemy of righteous- 
ness. The dungeons of eternal hell are 
filled with the broken dupes that it has 
"cast out into exterior darkness," where 
there are "weeping and gnashing of 
teeth"; * and the pathways of this life are 
strewn with the wrecks that it has made. 
For, it has degraded the human nature of 
countless men and women and has dragged 
them down to a debasement below that of 
brute beasts. It has crushed manhood and 
defiled womanhood; it has crowded mad- 
houses with gibbering fools ; it has disrupted 
families: it has eaten into the vitals of na- 
tions and has left them decayed skeletons 
along the highway of history. And the 
name of this enemy of God and man is lust. 
Sometimes it goes its way in secret, and 
for very shame hides its hideous face from 
the sight of men, as it casts down to unut- 
terable depths those who were meant to be 
the sons and daughters of God — and even 
then it is deplorable and despicable. Some- 

iMatt. XXV, 30. 



' LUST 109 

times it flaunts itself in the light of day, 
adorned with sensuous splendor ; sometimes 
it folds the robes of pride about its loath- 
some form, scoffs at virtuous conduct, tries 
to justify itself by dragging down to its 
own level the clean living children of God; 
nay, sometimes it goes so far as to glory in 
its own degradation — and then it is almost 
beyond the reach of God's mercy. 

Truly, a terrible scourge ; but, oh, so wide- 
spread ! Some of the saints, like St. Jerome 
and St. Alphonsus Liguori, have said — and 
heart-breaking experience seems to bear 
out the truth of their words — that ninety- 
nine out of every hundred who are damned 
bring their doom upon themselves by their 
surrender to this monstrous curse. We 
have good reason, then, to study this enemy 
of all that is holy, as it makes its undying 
attacks upon mankind ; we have solid cause 
to look at it in its aggression against Christ 
in His sorrowful Passion. 

Christ stands for ineffable purity, just as 
He is the embodiment of all perfection. 
Even His bitterest foes did not dare to be- 
smirch His fair name by the slightest 
slander in this matter. They called Him a 



110 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

glutton and a wine-bibber ; * they called 
Him a friend of publicans and sinners, 2 and 
hinted that He was a worthy comrade of 
those whom He loved; they called Him a 
charlatan possessed by the devil ; 3 they 
called Him a seditious man, 4 a disturber of 
the peace, 5 a traitor ; 6 they called Him 
a blasphemer against God. 7 But in the 
wildest fury of their hatred they never 
dreamed of assailing His spotless purity; 
for even their blinded souls could see that 
such an accusation would defeat itself by 
its glaring falseness. 

Purity was the apple of His eye ; and His 
special affection was always for the pure. 
Born of a Virgin Mother, Christ ever kept 
His tenderest love for the innocence of 
childhood, because it was pure, and for 
virgins, because they were most like His 
own beloved spotless Mother. He extolled 
the excellence of those who would give their 
whole hearts and the complete sacrifice of 

i Matt. XI, 19. 

2 Id. ib. 

3 Matt. XII, 24; John VIII, 48. 

4 Luke XXIII, 2. 

5 Luke XXIII, 5. 
e John XIX, 12. 

7 Matt. XXVI, 65. 



LUST 111 

body and soul to God, as comparable with 
the sacredness of the angels. In His mor- 
tal life the splendor of purity was His ; and 
through the endless ages of eternity, His 
closest associates are those who follow the 
Lamb whithersoever He goeth and sing a 
new canticle that none others can sing — for 
they are virgins. 1 

Over against this all-pure God-Man, as 
He walks the blood-stained way of His Pas- 
sion, our eyes are turned to the symbol of 
lustful impurity — to Herod and his court. 
Years before, Herod, surnamed the Great, 
had passed away ; but he left behind him an 
evil brood worthy of their sire. These were 
Archelaus and Herod Antipas and Philip. 
It was the second of these, Herod Antipas, 
who was the Herod of Christ's Passion. He 
had married the daughter of Aretas, king 
of the Nabathseans; but notwithstanding 
this marriage, when on a visit to Rome he 
had wantoned with his niece Herodias, who 
was wedded to his own half-brother Philip. 
So, he married her and took her back to 
Galilee. The cowed Sanhedrim feared to 
launch the excommunication, which he 

i Cf. Apoc. XIV, 4. 



112 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

would have greeted with a sneer; and 
Herod and Herodias flaunted their inces- 
tuous adultery in the eyes of men and held 
their heads high in pride. 

But there was one who was not crushed 
by fear of them. John the Baptist dared 
to reproach Herod openly for his evil deeds 
and to declare: "It is not lawful for thee 
to have thy brother's wife." 1 John's 
brave candor was the beginning of the end 
for him. Fascinated passion for the shame- 
less Herodias, whose hatred for John was 
as sharp and venomous as the tooth of an 
asp, joined perhaps with the groundless 
fear that the Baptist would arouse the peo- 
ple against the ruler's wild ways, rushed 
Herod into laying hands on the Precursor 
of the Master; and the fortress of Machse- 
rus became the prison of him who was 
"more than a prophet," 2 as it later became 
the scene of his sacrilegious murder. In 
very truth, Herod the Great, the monster 
who massacred the little innocents, had a fit 
successor in Herod Antipas, who murdered 

iMark VI, 18. 
2 Luke VII, 26. 



LUST 113 

John the Baptist, and who was the typical 
figure of lustful impurity. 

It was before this Herod Antipas that 
Jesus Christ was dragged. In the earlier 
stages of Christ's trial before Pilate, the 
Procurator had declared, after serious ex- 
amination of the prisoner, that he found no 
cause in the accused. The angry shouts of 
the people had protested against this deci- 
sion. They shrieked: "He stirreth up the 
people . . . beginning from Galilee to this 
place." 1 Then and there, through a rift in 
the clouds of hate, Pilate glimpsed what 
looked like a ray of peace and hope. Galilee 
was in Herod's jurisdiction; and the Gov- 
ernor trustfully looked to diplomacy to 
spare him from an uncomfortable necessity, 
which bristled with difficulties on whatever 
side he approached it. So, to shift the re- 
sponsibility to another in this thorny con- 
troversy, "he sent Jesus away to Herod, 
who was also himself at Jerusalem in those 
days." 2 

Away through the city the tumultuous 

iLuke XXIII, 5. 
2 Luke XXIII, 7. 



114 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

procession took its march, until it reached 
the palace where Herod was staying. Into 
the hall crowded the leaders and as many of 
the people as could force an entrance, drag- 
ging their weary prisoner. 

The gorgeous splendor of Oriental luxury 
was there. Perhaps the severity of a court 
room was lacking, since Herod intended to 
seek his amusement much more than to hold 
a trial. The light of the sun and the thou- 
sand-fold glitter of artificial illumination 
flashed back from polished spear and shin- 
ing breastplate of the soldiers and officers 
grouped about. The shimmer and sheen of 
silks and satins and heavy damask, the 
gleam of gold and the sparkle of jewels were 
all around. Reclining on a couch was 
Herod Antipas, and around him were 
gathered beauty and wit and power. The 
strains of sensuous barbaric music died 
away, as Herod turned his head to look at 
the stately Man who stood bound before 
him. 

Was Herodias, "the detestable," 1 there? 
and the siren Salome 1 It would have been 
a fitting climax, if they were, as they had 

i So styled by St. Augustine. 



LUST 115 

been present on that other occasion when 
Herod's court was gathered in revelry to 
celebrate the birthday of the Idumean king. 
On that day, within the hall in Machse- 
rus, mirth and jest ran high and minstrel 
songs echoed throughout the marble ban- 
quet-room. Loud laughter and soft whis- 
per mingled in pleasure's quest; melting 
eyes and flushed faces gleamed beneath the 
twinkling candles. And amid the throb- 
bing of drums and the blare of horns and the 
clashing of cymbals the dancing girl had 
woven her dance of death. During the 
drunken orgy, which the feast had become, 
Herod, again taken by his lustful senses, 
had sworn to the panting beauty that she 
should have whatever she asked, though it 
were the half of his kingdom. A moment of 
consultation with her tiger-hearted mother — 
and then: "I will that forthwith thou give 
me in a dish the head of John the Bap- 
tist." * A word of command : a short delay, 
filled with questioning apprehension and 
unnamed dread: and into the banquet-hall 
was brought a dish holding the bleed- 
ing head of Christ's Precursor — and the 

iMark VI, 25. 



116 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

ghastly gift was presented to the damsel, 
who bore it to her mother. 

Did this scene of blood come back to 
Herod on this day, as he reclined in soft 
sensuonsness in his palace in Jerusalem? 
He had heard before of the marvelous works 
of Christ; and, as in undying memory his 
thoughts reverted to the murdered Baptist, 
he had imagined that Christ must be John 
come back to life. Was the vision of his 
crime before him now? Unless indeed lust 
had killed even remorse within him, as it 
can and does when it goes to the length of 
proud self -justification, perhaps back of the 
majestic form of the Christ may have 
loomed the figure of him who was but a 
voice crying in the wilderness to prepare 
the way for a greater than himself. 

Christ before Herod ! It was a gorgeous 
sight, that hall with its adornment and its 
gathering ; but it was not true splendor. It 
was a glorious spectacle of beauty; but it 
was not real. It was the glittering cover- 
ing of filth. That palace court was the 
shrine of proud lust, and Herod the king 
was the wretched personification of self- 
satisfied impurity. 



LUST 117 

Christ before Herod! "Herod seeing 
Jesus was very glad; for he was desirous 
of a long time to see him, because he had 
heard many things of him, and hoped to see 
some sign wrought by him. ' ' 1 His desire 
was not founded upon reverence or longing 
for truth or yearning for enlightenment. 
He greeted Christ as he would have wel- 
comed some performer, who might while 
away the tedium of a long hour ; he received 
Jesus as if the Son of God had been a sen- 
sational wonder worker, who might amuse 
a sated, jaded, profligate court by some 
startling feat of magic or some marvel of 
jugglery. Was not this world given for the 
enjoyment of each fleeting moment? Was 
not the most serious occupation of humans 
to invent new ways of " having a good time" 
and cheating tedium of its victory? 

Christ before Herod ! The corrupted and 
corrupting spirit of the ruler and his court 
was like a stench in the nostrils to the all- 
pure Master. He looked beneath the smil- 
ing welcome of Herod's lust-marked face, 
back of the extravagant splendor of the prof- 
ligate 's sensuous companions and luxurious 

i Luke XXIII, 8. 



118 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

surroundings; and He read the horrible 
desolation of souls that were gladly feeding 
upon "the husks of swine." Christ was 
face to face with proud lust — and He de- 
spised it. 

And He showed His scorn by His con- 
temptuous silence; for, though Herod ques- 
tioned Him in many words, "he answered 
him nothing." 1 Oh, that awful silence of 
the scornful Christ! The Master who had 
stood over the woman taken in adultery, 
who had read her sorrow as she crouched 
in heart-broken penitence at His feet, who 
had washed away her guilt and had spoken 
the words of comfort, "Go, and now sin no 
more"; 2 the Master who had lifted up the 
fallen sinner of Magdala to the intimacy of 
companionship and the honor of a place 
beside His stainless Mother at the foot of 
His blood-drenched cross; the Master who 
had spoken to the crafty Annas and the 
hypocritical Caiaphas and the shifting 
Pilate — would not speak one word be- 
fore the proud lust of that gathering 
in Herod's court. Oh, the blistering scorn, 

i Luke XXIII, 9. 
2 John VIII, 11. 



LUST 119 

the withering contempt of Christ, as 
His silence told more piercingly than thun- 
dering words how much He despised it all ! 
That is the worst punishment of a sinful 
soul, steeped in lust — that its conscience 
should be dead, aye, and buried in a defile- 
ment worse than the corruption of the 
grave. 

Before the scorn of Christ's silent con- 
tempt Herod's heart was hot with furious 
anger ; yet he and his soldiers and courtiers 
would not admit that they felt the sting of 
the Nazarene's reproach. So, whilst "the 
chief priests and scribes stood by earnestly 
accusing" Jesus, " Herod and his army set 
him at naught and mocked him." 1 This 
man a prophet*? This man a criminal? 
"Why, He had not nobility enough to be a 
prophet, nor sense enough to be a criminal. 
He was a fool! He was a simpleton, who 
had not wit enough to recognize the splendor 
that was there before His eyes, nor discre- 
tion enough to grasp the fulness of the honor 
conferred upon Him in being allowed to 
amuse the great ones of Galilee and Judea ! 
So, they clothed the Son of God in the garb 

iLuke XXIII, 10, 11. 



120 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

of a fool, and with a mocking sneer turned 
away to entertainment more congenial : they 
"put a white garment upon him and sent 
him back to Pilate." x 

How that mockery hurts! To be hated 
pains; to be persecuted stings: but some- 
times the mockery which looks upon one as a 
fool bites deeper than all else into the heart 
of a man. All mortal sin does that, even to 
the Sovereign Lord! It mocks God and 
makes a fool of Christ. The lives of those 
who in the hurly-burly of their days have no 
time for God, who play fast and loose with 
God's mercy, who dare to prescribe to the 
Eternal the time and the circumstances and 
the conditions of their return to Him, mock 
God as Herod mocked the Christ. And in 
their heart of hearts such men can have no 
more peace than Herod had; and he had 
none. For, as that silent, awful Man was 
led away, the heart of Herod must have 
been gripped with the consciousness that 
the hand of the Almighty was upon him. 

Whilst all sin mocks Christ, the sins of 
those who give themselves to unrestricted 
pleasure, even unto the vileness of impure 

iLuke XXIII, 11. 



LUST 121 

excesses, are an especially hateful mockery 
of the Son of God. To look to a crucified 
Savior as the Eedeemer from evil; to 
hearken to His words, "If any man will 
come after me, let him deny himself and take 
up his cross daily and follow me"; 1 and then 
to place the be-all and end-all of life in the 
pursuit of sensual gratification, even unto 
the disregard of the solemn mandates of the 
law of nature itself — this surely is a mon- 
strous mockery of Jesus Christ. 

If the sensualists are right and if pleasure 
is the god before whom every child of man 
should worship, then indeed Christ was a 
fool ; and fools too are His noblest followers ; 
for, as St. Paul said, "If in this life only we 
have hope in Christ, we are of all men the 
most miserable. " 2 If the course of man's 
existence were to be measured as is that 
of the brutes, and if during this short span 
man, like a starving wretch, ought to snatch 
with greedy hands each morsel of pleasure ; 
then surely He who faced the awful depths 
of dishonor and suffering, which the Pas- 
sion held, was king of fools and monarch of 

iLuke IX, 23. 
2 I Cor. XV, 19. 



122 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

madmen. But if He is God, and if His 
words and His judgments shall not pass 
away ; then the reducing of man to the level 
of the beast, by the horrible preversion of 
the supreme handiwork of God, is an un- 
speakable mockery of the Savior. 

Now, the dear Christ is the Wisdom of 
God and His judgment stands; and that 
judgment, pealing forth from His condem- 
nation of the lust of Herod, is that the most 
delicate works of God amongst mortals are 
a pure woman and a clean man. The sanc- 
tifying grace of God with its marvelous ef- 
fects is the most magnificent achievement 
of divine omnipotence and love in the human 
soul; and therefore, purity is not the 
greatest of the boons sent down from heaven 
to earth. Yet, whilst purity is not the 
highest gift of God, in its glorious strength 
it is at once the most delicate and the sweet- 
est guerdon from the heavenly mansions of 
Paradise. 

A pure woman, whether virgin maiden or 
chaste wife and mother, what a wonderful 
work of human heroism and divine giving! 
In the elevation of the Little Maid of Naz- 



LUST 123 

areth woman has been lifted up to an emi- 
nence which calls for the respect and venera- 
tion of men. She is sacred, whether as the 
consecrated handmaiden of God in religious 
life or as the queen of the fireside and the 
heart of the home. This purity is the crown 
of her womanhood ; and if she lose it, it is 
so tragically piteous ! There is a peculiarly 
fragrant delicacy in the purity of woman; 
and the attitude of the world towards one 
who has cast it away is not altogether the 
spirit of the Pharisee. It is the voice of 
nature and of nature's God, hating impurity 
in all, but loathing it in a woman. The very 
elevation of her dignity makes her fall the 
more disastrous, if it comes. May she guard 
that elevated dignity! May she work out 
her destiny! And it is a blessed destiny; 
for by her sacred sweetness she is meant in 
the designs of God to lift the world and to 
make it a holier, as well as a happier, place 
to live in. 

Yet, for all that, a strong, pure, clean- 
living man is an object of deserved rever- 
ence, even for those who are not brave 
enough to follow his example in curbing the 



124 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

longings of animal nature. And — let it be 
well noted — for the man there is identically 
the same standard of personal purity as for 
the woman, unspotted in her hallowed holi- 
ness. For, much as a pagan world may 
prate about liberty and unshackled free- 
dom, there are not in the sight of God two 
different standards of purity for man and 
woman. The man may not with impunity 
break the law of God which demands clean 
living any more than may the tender vir- 
gin. The " sowing one's wild oats" is a 
sowing which but too often reaps the whirl- 
wind here in this life and the undying hur- 
ricane of destruction in the eternity of God's 
anger. 

All this is the verdict of Christ before 
Herod. Of a truth, Herod the lustful, who 
mocked the Christ, was the consummate 
fool: Christ the all-pure, whose contempt 
despised and condemned him, was the Lord 
of wisdom and of unalloyed truth. 

In some later reflections we shall see what 
the direct expiation of the lust of the world 
cost our Blessed Savior; but, even without 
the thought of that, His scorn and hatred for 
impurity should nerve individual and family 



LUST 125 

and nation to preserve unspotted the sacred 
lily of purity. 

As for our individual selves, we should 
always remember the sacredness and the 
dignity of a pure man or woman. God has 
endowed us with intelligence and will to 
know and embrace what is in accord with 
our human nature, as rational and as above 
the animal composite of the beast. In- 
dulgence in passion always increases the 
fierce yearnings of unworthy instincts, and, 
in the same proportion, cripples our godlike 
power of self-determination. Besides, to 
give way to the cravings of lust is to allow 
the animal to make an abject slave of the 
man or woman. This is a disgrace to the 
nature that God has given us. And the deg- 
radation grows to positive horror, when we 
recall with St. Paul that we are the temples 
of the Holy Ghost, 1 whom we should rever- 
ence in our very flesh ; that we are the mem- 
bers of Jesus Christ, whom we dishonor by 
our defections from the straight standard of 
purity. "Know you not that your bodies 
are the members of Christ? Shall I then 
take the members of Christ and make them 

i Cf. I Cor. Ill, 16. 



126 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

the members of a harlot? God forbid!" 1 
Yes, God forbid! 

But we must be on our guard. We should 
know that here, if anywhere, the wisest 
courage is the bravery of flight. If all occa- 
sions of any sin are to be shunned as the 
approach of the fiend, in this matter of pur- 
ity our vigilance must be redoubled; the 
more so, since there are unceasing allure- 
ments from without to throw fuel upon the 
white-hot embers that smoulder within us. 
We live in a world, where but too often 
purity is measured only by the canons of ex- 
terior respectability, and is not weighed in 
the balance of God 's truth. We are walking 
along the brink of a precipice, where a fool- 
hardy step may hurl us into abysmal depths. 
We are guarding a citadel, where there is a 
hidden traitor waiting to deliver us, bound 
hand and foot, into the power of the foe 
lurking without. With no looking for evil 
we find it. What if we seek it? Without 
our choice the danger is there. What if we 
love and court it? If we disregard the 
prudence of wise caution, the day will come 
when we shall feel the hot flames of passion 

1 1 Cor. VI, 15. 



LUST 127 

leap and surge about us like fiery blasts from 
the open mouth of hell. And if that day 
comes, God help us, if we have not learned to 
value our purity more than our lives! 

But unfortunately, caution is called 
squeamishness ; regard for decency is 
sneered at as prudery; self-control is mis- 
named narrow-mindedness. In the eyes of 
a sensual world Herod was the paragon of 
broad-minded tolerance; Jesus Christ, the 
exemplar of inconsiderate self -repression ! 
And so, " wisdom" (the false wisdom of a 
godless world) "is justified by her chil- 
dren." 1 

There is no getting away from the fact, 
that occasions we must avoid — or we shall 
perish. One of the most common occa- 
sions of personal impurity is excess in drink ; 
and the man or woman who would safe- 
guard the fair lily of purity must shield it 
from the hot breath of liquor-incited pas- 
sion. Yet intemperance has spread like a 
devastating plague. Not only in disrepu- 
table dives and noisome saloons of the sub- 
merged portion of civilized peoples has the 
net of death been set, but in the dazzling 

iMatt. XI, 19. 



128 THE UNDYING TKAGEDY 

halls of fashion and refinement. Not only 
amongst men are intemperance's victims 
numbered, but amongst women too. And 
with women, it is not only the foolish girl, 
boisterously flinging away the delicacy of 
sweet maidenhood by her promiscuous 
meeting and unrestrained drinking with 
half-criminals in low dance-halls, who has 
found her way to the bottomless pit; her 
fastidiously nurtured sister has discovered, 
that, without the fiery stimulant of alcohol, 
she cannot sparkle in eye and tongue as her 
fancy urges her to do. 

Yes, excess in drink is the gruesome sis- 
ter of impurity ; and the sad sight of blasted 
hopes and ruined modesty and desecrated 
purity is enough to wring the heart of any 
true lover of his kind. The present wave of 
prohibition reform by federal enactment, 
which, as being an unwarranted violation 
of individual liberty, many keen-visioned 
thinkers do not favor, though they unques- 
tionably do favor temperance for all, and 
total abstinence for those who either need 
it for temperance in themselves or who are 
big-hearted enough to make this sacrifice as 
an encouragement for the stumbling weak- 



LUST 129 

ling — this, be it said, might almost be wel- 
comed, if it gave promise of lessening the 
danger of excess in drink and if it thus 
diminished the peril of the loss of purity. 

Another ambushed foe, ranged against 
purity, is the senseless following of a pagan 
fashion. Men will invent and women will 
adopt forms of dress which make a direct 
appeal to fleshly instincts. The depraved 
know this tendency: those who are still 
clean may follow, without realizing the nat- 
ural effort of such indecencies. Many a 
pure woman shows herself in attire — or the 
lack of it — which almost inevitably arouses 
in those who have wallowed in the mire un- 
worthy thoughts and unbecoming desires. 
Were such thoughts and desires spoken to 
her, she would blush for shame and cry out 
in angry indignation. Why, then, should 
she not cry shame to herself for being the 
occasion of such thoughts and desires? 

The Apostle's words, "All things are 
clean to the clean, " * are pregnant with in- 
spired truth; but the axiom, "To the pure 
all things are pure," as understood by 
sensualists, is only a half-truth, and in its 

iTit. I, 15. 



130 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

name almost as many crimes have been 
committed as in the name of liberty. Keep 
the mind clean? Yes, please God! but, for 
that very reason, keep away from things 
which would defile the mind. This last re- 
mark bears especially on such kinds of read- 
ing and such forms of amusement, as con- 
naturally give rise to thoughts which be- 
smirch. Beware the asp! Unless one 
keeps the mind clean and the imagination 
undefiled, it will not be long before sensual- 
ism goes on even to bodily degradation. 

The impurity which makes a revolting 
caricature of the " image and likeness of 
God, "Ms truly worthy of the condemna- 
tion meted out to it by the silent Christ, as 
He stood before Herod. But, pernicious as 
is personal impurity, still more disastrous, 
if possible, is the lust which sinks its viper 
fangs into the heart of the family. This 
domestic impurity has left its slimy trail 
across the history of a lustful race; it is 
alive and active for evil today. The Sov- 
ereign Pontiff, Benedict XV, says: " Every 
effort is being made to weaken the 
firmness and indissolubility of the marriage 

i Genesis I, 26. 



LUST 131 

bonds and to prevent our youth from com- 
ing under religious influence. Wickedness 
goes so far as to endanger the very propaga- 
tion of the human race, and with infamous 
vices, to defile the sanctity of matrimonial 
life by praising shameful practices for the 
gratification of lust which frustrate the 
rights of the laws of nature." 1 These 
words of the Vicar of that Christ who 
branded with infamy the ltfstf ul Herod, con- 
demn the passion which would enjoy the 
privileges of the wedded state, whilst shirk- 
ing its sacred obligations; they also un- 
equivocally condemn the passion which has 
foisted upon the world the monstrous evil of 
divorce. 

Divorce is a monstrous evil. By the law 
of nature marriage cannot be dissolved by 
the mutual consent of the contracting 
parties — or the relation between man and 
woman would be reduced to the unspeak- 
able vileness of promiscuous cohabitation. 
By the same law of nature the breaking 
of the bond so as to leave the parties free 
to enter into new unions is above and beyond 

i Letter of Benedict XV to Padre Matheo Crawley-Boevey, 
April 27, 1915. 



132 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

the power of the civil authority — or na- 
ture itself, and nature's God, would have 
opened the door to the frightful abuses 
which stun all thoughtful and sincere lovers 
of mankind. Give but the smallest open- 
ing to passion, and the trickling stream 
will become the mighty torrent, will sweep 
away all barriers of restraint, and will rush 
along resistless and overwhelming. 1 

Our own loved land (God help us !) proves 
the tragic truth of this sad statement, just 
as it possesses the unholy distinction of hav- 
ing the highest proportional divorce rate in 
the whole wide world. Very recently the 
latest official Bulletin of the Census Bureau 
was made public. 2 Its revelations are 
simply appalling. In less than a quarter of 
a century, in twenty years, from 1896 to 
1916, the number of divorces in proportion 
to the number of marriages was more than 
doubled! So far did the iniquitous jug- 
gling with the law of God proceed, that in 
1916 there was one divorce for every nine 
marriages. And we call ourselves a God- 
fearing, religious-minded, Christian people ! 

i Cf. Oath. Encyc. s. v. "Divorce," p. 68. 
2 March, 1919. 



LUST 133 

The truth cannot be blinked. Divorce 
with subsequent remarriage is legalized 
impurity. Although there may be many 
causes which demand separation from an 
unworthy partner, in the majority of cases 
the plea for a union with another consort 
comes from the insatiate longing of the 
flesh. Passion may cloak its claim under 
the sanctimonious plea that "marriage with- 
out the love which should be its soul is a 
base hypocrisy and an earthly hell"; it may 
clamor about "the right to live one's life to 
the full," "the right to personal happiness 
in truth and sincerity of heart," "the right 
to escape from unbearable misery and to try 
again after a ghastly failure." These are 
but the fallacious sophisms of lust. For, 
even though love be dead, conscience need 
not perish; the right to happiness is not 
without the limits circumscribed by God and 
His all-holy law; the right to escape from 
misery does not include the adoption of un- 
hallowed means. 

Is polygamy wrong? It is to such an 
extent, that it cannot be allowed except by 
God alone — and by Him, because His provi- 
dence could forestall pernicious conse- 



134 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

quences, should His wisdom tolerate it. 
Then, the successive polygamy, which is the 
result of divorce, is not less against the law 
of nature. Nay, in a manner, it is worse 
than the simultaneous polygamy which the 
refined ( !) abhor, in as much as the lot of 
the children in the latter case is much better 
than in the case of the legalized polygamy of 
divorce. 

The law of nature and the original inten- 
tion of God as to the union of man and wife 
were emphasized by our dear Lord, when He 
brought marriage back to its primitive unity 
and indissolubility. "Whosoever shall put 
away his wife and marry another com- 
mitteth adultery against her. And if the 
wife shall put away her husband and be 
married to another she committeth adult- 
ery": * "What therefore God hath joined 
together let no man put asunder." 2 

Nay, Christ elevated the natural matri- 
monial contract between Christians to the 
dignity of a sacrament which shadows forth 
His own one and indissoluble union with 
His Spouse the Church; and as a conse- 

iMark X, 11, 12. 
2 Matt. XIX, 6. 



LUST 135 

quence, during the life of the two parties, 
consummated Christian marriage can no 
more be dissolved for the beginning of an- 
other binding, than Christ's everlasting 
union with His Beloved Bride can be 
broken. As Christ and His Spouse are one 
unto the endless end, so a Christian man 
and his Christian wife are one until death 
do them part. 

And if the law of nature and the positive 
divine law, which stand as ramparts against 
the encroachments of lustful excesses, bring 
pain and sorrow to some, what wonder? 
Law, which looks to the general good, often 
works hardship to the individual. But 
there was a deep truth in the words of the 
hypocrite Caiaphas, who said: "It is 
expedient . . . that one man should die for 
the people and that the whole nation perish 
not." 1 So too, it is right that some in- 
dividuals should play the martyr's part, in 
order that the race of men may not wallow 
in the mire and go down to degradation. 

Besides, in the face of difficulty the help 
of God is at hand for those who will have it. 
Prayer and the sacraments are the heaven- 

i John XL 50, 



136 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

granted means for fortifying the weakness 
of nature, especially against the onsets of 
lust. In the Holy Eucharist "the corn of 
the elect and the wine springing forth 
virgins " x are ready for the Church's chil- 
dren to make them stronger than themselves. 
And for those who are deprived of this 
"holy of holies" there is the grace which 
comes through the channels reserved for 
such as, through no fault of their own, are 
not possessed of the fulness of God's sacra- 
mental assistance. 

But, it may still be urged, in spite of these 
aids it is hard to abide by the law of the 
unity and indissolubility of marriage. 
Hard? Perhaps it is; nay, surely it is at 
times. But, look at the other side of the 
picture. If it is not this, it will be the moral 
degradation of man to the baseness of an 
instinct-driven brute : it will be the debase- 
ment of woman to the deplorable state which 
is hers when paganism, ancient or modern, 
has worked its will upon her — cast down 
from the heights of sacredness to the infamy 
of a toy of lust or a plaything of passion: 
it will be the crushing of the sweetness of 

iZach. IX, 17. 



LUST 137 

childhood to the wretchedness of abandon- 
ment or the misery of an orphanhood that is 
not sent from heaven, but is engendered by 
the archenemy of God and man. 

Moreover, a polluted family means an en- 
dangered State ; for the fireside of the home 
is the palladium of the nation. When the 
women of Rome counted the years, not by 
the consuls, but by the number of their hus- 
bands, the mistress of the world entered 
upon the way that led to the extinction of 
her greatness. God grant, that our own 
loved land may read the handwriting on the 
wall and safeguard her existence before it 
is too late! In the bottom of my heart I 
cherish the hope that she will; I cling to 
the assurance that she will awake before 
she sleeps in death. We should all hold fast 
to this confidence ; but meanwhile, our very 
love for our country should urge us to do 
whatever we can to stop the ravages of 
divorce, which is a national plague-spot. 

America owes more to the dear old Church 
than the thoughtless realize. It is the 
Church that has stood in the breach against 
the assaults of divorce, the devilish enemy 
of the nations, and has held in check the 



138 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

fierceness of its advance. Her own children 
she has guarded from the infernal pest 
under threat of eternal damnation; and 
beyond her pale the influence of her battle 
for the purity of home and country has 
found its saving way. May our country 
come to see and acknowledge the immense 
debt which she owes to Mother Church! 

I trust that this prayer will be answered. 
And, under the providence of God, which 
will (I pray) do great things for the world 
through America, my hope is based upon 
the gleam of brightness that shines across 
the blackness of the late world-war. Then 
our country made the splendid concerted 
governmental effort to keep her fighting 
men pure. Religion had always stood be- 
tween the soldier and his unworthy instincts. 
But, in present-day indifference, it was a 
new thing for a nation to do its utmost to 
second the command of God and to further 
the longing of every true man and every 
pure woman of the land, that the boys 
might come back clean. Some of the men, 
it is true, did not heed the mandate of God, 
the desire of loved ones, or the effort of 
their country : some of them fed themselves 



LUST 139 

with "the husks of swine": some of them 
followed after the profligate Herod and 
feared not the silent contempt of the angry 
Christ. But many others were manly men. 
And all the while, before faithful and un- 
faithful, the ideal was there, seconded by 
America. And the ideal was for each of 
the boys to come back, to press his lips to 
his mother's lips, to clasp a sister to his 
manly breast, to hold wife or sweetheart in 
the embrace of love ; and to know in his in- 
most soul that he was not less worthy, than 
he was when he marched away, of the 
tender affection and the throbbing love of 
that sweetest masterpiece of God, a good and 
pure woman. 

Let us conclude. The fight against lust, 
either covert or proudly scornful, calls for 
the strength of heroes and heroines; for, 
the weakling goes under in the fight and 
grows in feebleness as well as in defilement. 
The godlike power of free self-determina- 
tion must be made stronger day by day 
through the exercise of self-restraint even 
in lawful things, so that we may show to 
passion that we are masters in the domain 
of our own souls. Christian asceticism is 



140 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

not the bugaboo of blinded superstition, as 
the fools of the world have called it; it is 
the natural means of making safe the glory 
of our human nature. 

Moreover, besides thus strengthening our 
wills, we must fly from the occasions of evil 
as from death itself, and, in the spirit of 
Christian charity towards God and man, we 
must put the ban of our disapproval on 
every attempt to drag down the blessedness 
of virtue. Let no prurient literature 
prosper through our spread of it; let no 
questionable theatrical performance thrive 
on our patronage; let no fleshly fashion 
flourish by our adoption of it. And beyond 
all this, whilst keeping before our souls the 
ideal of unstained womanhood and clean 
manhood, let us draw near to God to clasp 
Him with the arms of loving prayer and to 
be linked to Him by the hallowed chains of 
the sacraments. 

Yes, let our lives be pure in our individual 
selves, in family relations, in civic endeavors 
and national aspirations. May we stand 
with the Christ, His friends and com- 
panions, even though the cost be scorn ; for, 
His beaming eyes will bless us with a love 



LUST 141 

whose value is beyond price ! May we never 
have part with Herod, the incestuous 
adulterer, the proud profligate, the lustful 
libertine ! May we never be stricken by the 
thunder of the scornful silence of the Christ 
in the presence of the fool who dared to 
make a fool of the Savior of mankind! 



CHAPTER V 

THE SOLDIERS AND CRUELTY 

"Then therefore Pilate took Jesus and scourged 
him." John XIX, 1. 

"Then the soldiers of the governor taking Jesus 
into the hall, gathered together unto him the whole 
band ; and stripping him, they put a scarlet cloak 
about him, and platting a crown of thorns, they put 
it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand. And 
bowing the knee before him, they mocked him, saying: 
Hail, king of the Jews. And spitting upon him, they 
took the reed, and struck his head." Matt. XXVII, 
27-30. 

"Jesus therefore came forth bearing the crown of 
thorns and the purple garment. And he saith to 
them: Behold the Man." John XIX, 5. 

One of the most eloquent speeches ever 
penned by Shakespeare, the wizard of the 
human soul, is placed on the lips of Mark 
Antony. As this zealous partisan of Csesar 
was standing over the mortal remains of his 
murdered friend, he told his hearers, whom 
he was stirring up to the fever heat of re- 
venge : 

"I only speak right on; 
I tell you that which you yourselves do know ; 
142 



CRUELTY 143 

Show you sweet Cassar's wounds, poor, poor dumb 

mouths, 
And bid them speak for me. ' ' x 

Such too has been my part, though not 
for the purpose of stirring up revenge. It 
has been my portion to tell the bitterest story 
ever told; to rehearse the sad, sad scenes 
of Christ's sorrows ; to show you the wounds 
of His Sacred Heart, and bid them speak 
for me and plead for the solace of atoning 
love to Him. We have looked upon the 
God-Man writhing in anguish beneath the 
foul weight of the sins of the world ; we have 
followed Him before the hypocritical tri- 
bunal of the Jews and the time-serving judg- 
ment-seat of the representative of Rome; 
we have beheld the Wisdom of the Father 
mocked as a fool by the incestuous adulterer 
Herod. 

The tortures of the agony in the garden, 
though reaching to our Lord's body, came 
from no pains inflicted by His enemies upon 
His sacred flesh ; and, though the hatred of 
His foes degenerated into violence in the 
other scenes that have passed before us, the 
outrages were chiefly those that struck the 

i Julius Ccesar, Act III, Scene II. 



144 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

spirit of the Savior. Now, however, we 
have reached a point where the pains which 
afflicted Christ's tender flesh were not only 
those that flowed over from a desolate soul, 
not merely those that came from the rude 
and ruthless dragging from one tribunal to 
another, but were the direct onslaught of 
fiendish cruelty against His sacred body. 
We are to gaze on Christ in the hands of the 
savagely cruel soldiers. 

With saddened hearts we have also viewed 
the undying attacks, which down through 
the ages the forces of evil have been making 
against God and against His Christ. We 
have studied the fell, disastrous effects in 
the lives of men of disloyalty and duplicity 
and time-serving and lust. But we have 
not reached the end of the catalogue of evil. 
There is another force of wickedness, typi- 
fied by the soldiers in their relentless barbar- 
ity ; and it is cruelty. 

This cruelty often comes from lust. 
History proves this. Rome, which has 
stood not only as an example of human 
greatness, but as a shining beacon for the 
nations to warn them from the rocks of de- 



CRUELTY 145 

struction — Rome proves it. When lust had 
broken down the sturdier virtue of earlier 
days; when it had torn asunder the home 
by the noisome prevalence of divorce ; when 
it had enslaved the valor of Roman man- 
hood to minister to sensuous luxury; then, 
and not till then, did her children cry out 
for the struggles of the arena and for the 
death fights of men, who bled to quench 
the tiger-thirst for blood in lust-hardened 
hearts. 

Besides, cruelty may also come from 
pride, with its insane exaltation of self: it 
may come from avarice, with its insatiate 
longing for the material things of a perish- 
ing earth. In a word, it comes from that 
undisciplined, unrestrained humanity that 
sinks down to brutality. 

Whatever its source, cruelty is a veritable 
beast of prey, hard, relentless, ruthless. 
What it has done to the world, we shall see 
presently ; what it did to the suffering Jesus, 
let us behold as we look on the Christ in His 
scourging and His crowning with thorns at 
the hands of the brutal soldiers. 

Were it not for the fact that I have under- 



146 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

taken to place before you the various scenes 
of Christ's Passion and to study with you 
the deathless attacks of evil against God and 
good, I should much prefer to pass by the 
awful incidents of the Scourging and 
Crowning. For, as the poet says, there are 
" thoughts that too often lie too deep for 
tears"; * and if they lie too deep for tears, 
they surely lie too deep for human words. 
These scenes were best realized in sad, silent 
meditation. Yet, in the hope that my words 
may at least bring you to this prayerful, 
sorrowful reflection, I shall put the incidents 
before you. 

Earlier in our considerations we looked on 
Pilate as he ineffectually struggled to stem 
the flood of the Jews' hatred and malice 
against the Christ. We saw the Governor 
give way step by step before the relentless 
attack of Sanhedrists and people upon the 
Man whom he knew to be innocent and whom 
he had resolved to free from their power. 
His words spoken in the discomfiture of 
coming defeat suggested another way to 
compass his end. "I find no cause in this 
man in those things wherein you accuse 

l Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality. 



CKUELTY 147 

him . . ." lie had said: "I will chastise 
him therefore and release him. " * 

He would submit Christ to the igno- 
minious torture of the scourging, and would, 
he hoped, satisfy the scorn and hate of the 
priests and people by this cruel humiliation 
and by reducing the Victim to so pitiable 
a state as to glut the fierce anger of the mob 
by the sight of the prisoner's frightful suf- 
ferings. St. Augustine 2 is our guarantee 
for thus reading the intentions of Pilate, 
and his explanation has found favor with 
the best commentators of the Sacred Text. 
It is well to bear this in mind — that Pilate 
wished this scourging to be so severe, that 
he might call on anyone who deemed him- 
self a man to be content and to let the 
prisoner go. And if the sufferer should die 
under the torment? Well, Pilate must 
chance it : he must snatch at this last straw 
to save himself from the torrent that was 
bearing him away. 

What was the torture of the scourging? 
This much is sure, it was one of the most 
frightful ordeals of suffering ever invented 

iLuke XXIII, 14, 16. 
2 In Pa. 63 ad vers. 2. 



148 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

by man. The whipping and lashing of a 
human being has always been looked upon, 
not only as a disgrace, but as a form of most 
intense pain; and it has gradually been 
dropped from the punishments of civilized 
nations, except, perhaps, in the case of those 
who are considered as little better than 
brutes. Where it is retained, we shudder at 
the bare recital of the minute details given 
as instructions. For instance, The Manual 
for the Director of the Prisons of one of the 
nations of modern times that prided itself 
upon its culture (Kultur) says: " Where 
the lash is applied the skin should burst at 
the fifth blow; the following blows enlarge 
the wound, and at the end of the punishment 
the whole back is open. Each blow should 
make a cut a half a centimetre long. ' ' 1 

Among the Cherokee Indians the lash was 
applied as a punishment; but the number 
of strokes was limited to one hundred — and 
this often meant death. The Russian knout 
(at least the old form) was a whole arsenal 
of instruments of torture. It could kill 
with one blow ; but the painful ordeal could 
be so prolonged as to keep death at arm's 

i Cited by Ollivier, The Passion, p. 282. 



CRUELTY 149 

length. The knout was one long thong, 
which could wrap its hissing, biting length 
about the victim's body in such fierce em- 
brace, that it seemed to be drinking savagely 
of his blood, whilst it tore the skin and cut 
to the very bone. Long years before, the 
punishment of scourging had been estab- 
lished among the Jews, but with a limit. 
Thirteen strokes on the right shoulder, 
thirteen strokes on the left shoulder, and 
thirteen strokes on the breast with the 
vicious four-thonged lash was the maxi- 
mum allowed by custom ; since it was neces- 
sary to keep within the limit prescribed by 
the law, which said that the number of 
stripes must " exceed not the number of 
forty, lest thy brother depart shamefully 
torn before thy eyes." 1 

But among the Romans scourging was still 
more terrible. Cicero harangues eloquently 
on its dreadful pain, when he paints the 
picture of Sestius beaten with the lictors' 
rods in the forum of Lilybseum, until he 
was left for dead on the blood-spattered 
ground. But, when the lictors' fasces gave 
place to the scourge of slaves, the suffering 

iDeut. XXV, 3. 



150 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

grew to such indescribable intensity, as to 
draw expressions of pity from those hard 
old Romans, who looked upon their slaves 
as mere chattels, less worthy of considera- 
tion than favorite hounds. 

One form of the Roman scourge was made 
of cords armed with bits of bone, or of 
chains with buttons of metal at the ends of 
the lashes. Another form, the flagellum, 
was less formidable to the sight ; but its long, 
sinuous, bare thongs — a multiplied Russian 
knout — made it worthy of the name given 
it by the poet Horace, who called it horribile 
flagellum, the horrible scourge. 

These were the instruments of the Roman 
scourging. The number of stripes was not 
fixed by law. The agony of its infliction was 
so poignantly crazing that the imagination 
recoils in horror. And it was to the Roman 
scourging that Pilate condemned the God- 
Man, as he uttered the words of sentence, 
which a tradition has preserved : " Go . . . 
bind his hands; cover his head; and strike 
carefully and vigorously.' ' 

So, Christ was led to the corner of the 
Pretorium of the fortress-palace, the 
Antonia. His garments were torn from 



CRUELTY 151 

His body, and He stood there in His naked- 
ness, a jibe for the cursing on-lookers. 
There was a low marble column, about a 
foot and a half high, with a ring in the top. 
To this He was bound and forced to bend, 
that the scourge might bite with fiercer 
sting. A deep breath : a look to heaven : a 
movement of the lips that may have whis- 
pered an offering prayer to His Father : and 
He was ready for the frightful ordeal. 

Pilate seems to have been absent from 
the scene of torture, though he may have re- 
mained until the infliction of punishment 
was begun. His absence gave the Jews ad- 
ditional opportunity to have messengers 
urge the strong-armed executioners to do 
bloody work. As some of the Fathers of the 
Church have said, the Jews in their cruel 
hate seemed to be possessed by the devil: 
and they may have feared that Pilate would 
prove intractable in the end and would free 
the prisoner, as he had said. Better that 
Christ should die under the lash than escape 
their fury. 

In the midst of a silence full of dread fore- 
boding, like the calm before the bursting of 
the tempest, the signal was given, and the 



152 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

work of torture began. There was the 
hiss of the scourges as they swung through 
the air, the thud as they struck the flesh of 
Christ and clung there. Blow after blow 
rained down, insistent, merciless, endless. 
Quivering shudders passed over the frame 
of the Victim. There was a voiceless groan 
from the close-pressed lips, a tightening of 
the muscles, an unconscious straining at the 
cords that bound Him. And as the flail-like 
motion of the horrible scourges kept on un- 
ceasingly and savagely, large red welts arose 
on the white skin : they burst : blood flowed 
in streams, and pieces of the sacred flesh 
were torn away and jerked amidst the crowd 
around. 

Poor, suffering Christ! Did the execu- 
tioners strike, not only His back, but His 
breast and even His face"? God knows! 
How long did the torment last? God 
knows ! Were some of the saints right when 
they said that our dear Lord received 
thousands of stripes'? God knows! But 
this we know : it was excruciatingly severe. 
Pilate's purpose shows that. The hatred of 
the soldiers of Rome, goaded on by the 
fiercer hatred of the Jews, shows that. The 



CRUELTY 153 

number and the malice of the sins for which 
Christ was atoning shows that. 

The Savior was atoning for sin — for all 
sin, but most of all for vile, fleshly sin. It 
is not without reason, that pious souls have 
always looked on the scourging as the Re- 
deemer's special expiation of the sins of lust. 
For, the lash was prescribed in the Old Law 
as the penalty for some of the sins of the 
flesh ; * and all lust is the placing in the 
ascendant of the animal in our nature — the 
animal which must be whipped into submis- 
sion. 

Before Herod we saw Christ despising 
lust ; now we behold Him expiating it. And 
the vileness and the number of these sins 
of impurity, which have defiled the in- 
dividual, the family, and society, show the 
Rightfulness of the torture beneath which 
Jesus Christ groaned. No wonder, then, 
that the lashes swung on and on : no wonder 
that the blood flowed in ruddy rivulets : no 
wonder that the Son of God shuddered in 
voiceless agony : no wonder that His quiver- 
ing, lacerated body crumpled down to the 
earth, helpless and bleeding, and hung by the 

iCf. Levit. XIX, 20. 



154 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

cords that bound His wrists to the pillar. 

There hung the Christ, weltering in the 
crimson tide that gushed from His torn 
veins, with the blows still flaying Him 
alive — until, as a tradition has it, a Roman 
officer, passing through the court, pushed 
his way to the side of the prostrate Victim 
and turned in anger to the crowd. "What! 
Would you kill a man who is not yet con- 
demned?" he said, and cut the cords that 
bound our Savior. 

There lay the Christ, cut, not with the 
knife, but with the swinging lash; burned, 
not with fire, but with the stinging flame of 
whips. There He lay, the sad sight which 
had come before the vision of Isaias when he 
mourned : ' ' There is no beauty in him. . . . 
We have thought him as it were a leper and 
as one struck by God and afflicted. But he 
was wounded for our iniquities, he was 
bruised for our sins and the chastisement 
of our peace was upon him, and by his 
bruises we are healed." * 

What a sight He was! That soldier, 
whose heart was hardened to war, could not 
look on it unmoved. But the Lust of the 

i Isaias LIII, 2, 4, 5. 



CRUELTY 155 

World, with its unbounded barbarity, could 
do so. Then and ever since it has stood over 
Christ's flayed body, gloating over His suf- 
ferings in unfeeling savagery, glorying in 
His sorrows in fiendish cruelty. It has 
taunted Him, asking Him if this was all 
that He could do to end the reign of lust. 
Nay, it has snatched the bloody scourge from 
the hands of the wearied executioners and 
with a laugh that rang with the hate of hell 
it has again lashed the torn flesh of the Sa- 
vior. 

God knows, lust was cruel to Jesus Christ ! 
And so too, it has been cruel to mankind. 
It has made man surrender the patent of 
his nobility and grovel in the defilement of 
degradation. It has crushed the soul down 
into depths of filth. It has darkened the 
intellect, so that the mind, that was made 
to rise even to the heights of God, has been 
debauched, until it has wallowed bespat- 
tered in thoughts that know not the radi- 
ance of God's light and purity. It has un- 
dermined the power of the will and has made 
the spirits of millions the abject slaves of 
depraved senses. It has besmirched the 
body, until in certain vile excesses the flesh 



156 THE UNDYING TKAGEDY 

has entered prematurely upon the dissolu- 
tion of the grave, corrupted and disgraced. 

Oh, if only men and women would realize 
what lustful impurity has done to the tor- 
tured Savior and to themselves, then this 
world, instead of being, as it is for so many, 
the antechamber of hell, would become the 
vestibule of heaven itself, and would bloom 
with the fragrance of a purity that would 
rejoice the eyes of God and man. And they 
would realize it, if only in sorrow and love 
they stood over the mangled Savior, lying 
there in His blood; if, when the storm of 
temptation raged, they would fly to the 
wounds that have dug His sacred flesh, and 
would be strengthened by the crimson flood 
which throbs from His gashed veins. Then 
they would not barter away their everlast- 
ing inheritance for a mere nothing, and a 
less than nothing ; they would not renew the 
devilish cruelty, exercised against the loving 
Christ in His frightful scourging. 

Cruelty, like the tiger-thirst for blood, is 
insatiable. The cruelty of the soldiers, 
vented in the scourging, went wild and sug- 
gested another means to insult and torment 
the prisoner. They had heard that Christ 



CEUELTY 157 

claimed to be the king of the Jews, and they 
may have thought that Pilate wished to 
crush Him for His pretensions. A king? 
Then must He be garbed in royal fashion 
and honored with regal court! Throwing 
His garments about Him, they dragged Him 
to the centre of the fortress, into the open 
space or atrium of the palace. There 
would be cheering entertainment and rous- 
ing sport afoot, and none of their comrades 
must miss it. 

So, they called together the whole band. 
How many they were, we know not. They 
may or may not have been five hundred; 
but they were a large mob of ruffians, prob- 
ably enlisted from the region of Samaria, 
and bearing for all the despised Jews (and 
how much more for this outcast!) the hate 
of Roman soldiers and of Samaritans, the 
double hatred of political and religious bit- 
terness. 

Yes, they would make Him a king ! The 
soldiers of Herod had begun the mockery: 
the soldiers of Rome would show how an 
upstart king should be treated. First, they 
tore His clothes away from His body, which 
was one raw, untended wound. And then 1 ? 



158 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

For the imperial purple, they cast an old 
military cloak about His bleeding shoulders. 
For His diadem, they took rushes from the 
horses' litter and wove them into a cap or 
mitre: and from the fagots for the camp- 
fire they tore long, sharp thorns, and thrust 
the piercing points through the woven cap 
of rushes. And the crown was ready. 
Down upon His head! and push it hard, 
until the thorns force and cut their way 
through skin and nerves and fasten it se- 
curely! Oh, it was rare sport, this crown- 
ing of the king ! 

Robed and crowned! But the sceptre 
was still lacking. A reed, like a piece of 
cane, would be the very thing. Thrust it 
into His hands ; but first strike that thorny 
diadem, that the sceptre may make sure the 
crown! 

It was all perfect. And the whole cohort 
gathered around, and laughed and cheered 
and jeered and hissed, each man egged on by 
the ribald applause of his comrades. There 
sat the King upon the broken column on 
which they had roughly thrust Him — the 
King holding His court. And they retired 
a short distance, and returning, advanced in 



CEUELTY 159 

mock solemnity to pay Him homage. They 
came and bowed the knee before Him and 
mocked Him, saying: "Hail, King of the 
Jews!" 1 And as they rose up, instead of 
offering the kiss of reverence whereby kings 
were saluted, they scoffed, and spat in His 
face. On came the ranks of those jostling 
courtiers, pushing and crowding, so as to 
force the King from His throne : and as He 
regained His position, they seized the reed 
from His hands and struck that thorny 
crown. Higher and higher rose the uproar ; 
fiercer and fiercer grew the carousal of 
cruelty; and again and again above the 
clamor swelled the taunting cry, "Hail, King 
of the Jews!" 

King of the Jews? Ah, let us in aton- 
ing love hail Him as our King: "Hail, 
King of the souls of men !" When we were 
baptized, we were clothed with the insignia 
of children of His Kingdom; when the 
chrism of confirmation anointed our brow, 
we were sealed with the mark of soldiers of 
the King. Have we been true to that King I 
Are we true to Him now 1 From our heart 
of hearts do we salute Him with the acclaim, 

iMatt. XXVII, 26. 



160 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

1 'Hail, King of love! Hail, King of the 
world"? 

Let us be honest with Him and with our- 
selves : let us not be cruel with the brutality 
of unseeing pride. We are His. Are we 
brave enough to go on where He has led? 
Are we loyal enough to keep close to Him, 
as He fights and conquers by scorning re- 
proach and by being stronger than pain? 
Can we follow Him, our King, not only 
when the sky is bright and the heavens smile, 
but when the storm-clouds gather and the 
tempest breaks above our heads and the din 
of war tests our inmost souls? And if we 
are not courageous enough to resist unto 
blood, shall we be so recreant as to play the 
part of traitors and to join in with the cruel 
onsets of selfishness and of pride ? 

Pride ! The torment of the crowning and 
mocking is Christ's special atonement for 
the sins of pride. The cruelty of pride is 
appalling; yet the prevalence of pride is 
staggering. Isn't it the love of self unto 
the forgetfulness or hatred of God (and 
that, as St. Augustine said, is what pride 
is) to clasp the gifts that come from God and 
to have never a thought for the Giver of all 



CRUELTY 161 

good? Isn't it insufferable arrogance to 
claim to be the children of our Father who is 
in heaven, and to dare to call Him before 
the bar of our puny reason and make Him 
justify His providence to our little, dark- 
ened minds — nay, to blaspheme Him be- 
cause He chastises us in love? Isn't it un- 
speakable insolence for those who are the 
kinsmen of the Outcast of the world to al- 
low misfortune to turn them into harsh 
critics of God, bitter haters of their fellow 
men, and abettors of doctrines which over- 
throw the home and the State ? 

Such things as these are as brutal in their 
proud mockery of Christ and as savagely 
cruel to Him, as were those soldiers of 
Pilate, who kept on with their diabolical 
sport until a messenger came from the Gov- 
ernor, commanding them to bring the pris- 
oner before him. 

Pilate, it has been noted, had not been 
present during the outrage of the crowning, 
as he probably was absent from the con- 
tinuance of the scourging. Neither had the 
Jews been within the Governor's palace: 
they had remained outside the Pretorium, 
in order that they might not contract legal 



162 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

defilement and thus be debarred from the 
celebration of the Paseh. They would stain 
their souls with the blood of an innocent 
victim; but they would not violate the Law 
by entering beneath a pagan roof. They 
would "strain out a gnat and swallow a 
camel." 1 From the windows and door- 
ways some of them could catch an occasional 
glimpse of what was transpiring within, and 
more of them could hear the shouts and jeers 
with which the soldiers mocked "the King 
of the Jews." Whipped into fury by the 
priests who moved quickly among them, they 
knew no lessening of their panting desire 
for the death of the Christ. Like a storm- 
tossed sea off a rocky coast, the mob surged 
back and forth before the palace. But 
their restlessness increased. Perhaps they 
feared that Pilate would carry out his inten- 
tion of liberating the prisoner. So, they 
shouted for their Victim. 

Pilate was recalled to the conflict, and 
gave orders that Jesus should be brought 
before him. And Christ, the crimsoned, 
mangled toy of cruelty, was once more led 
into the presence of the Procurator, so 

iMatt. XXIII, 24. 



CRUELTY 163 

spent with pain and loss of blood, that He 
could scarcely totter along, and may have 
had to be supported by the guards, that He 
might stand before His faithless judge. 

Pilate was a man of blood and iron; but 
he could not look upon the Christ without 
emotion. Was that wreck the majestic Man 
who had stood before him so short a time 
ago? Surely, he thought, and the thought 
does him credit — surely, no man could gaze 
upon that breathing wound, that living 
death, and demand more punishment. That 
crown of thorns and that mockery of roy- 
alty Pilate had neither meant nor com- 
manded ; but it would all serve his purpose. 
And he went out to the people. 

With Christ stumbling on after him sup- 
ported by the soldiers, Pilate advanced, and 
from the portico faced the frenzied throng. 
Then he pointed the Master out to the people 
with the words, " Behold the Man!" x Oh, 
what a sight He was ! That head, crowned 
with thorns which pierced the skin and veins 
and sent the blood trickling down over the 
saddened face! That face, disfigured with 
spittle, and clotted with dust and gore, and 

i John XIX, 5. 



164 THE UNDYING TKAGEDY 

cut and swollen with the strokes of the 
scourge and the blows of the sceptre ! That 
breast, furrowed with the lash; that body, 
torn by the whips and showing ghastly 
wounds between the folds of the tattered 
purple cloak! Those hands, tied together 
and grasping the broken reed, the sceptre of 
scorn that had been the rod of torture! 
That whole combination of anguish and 
misery and abandonment, but illumined all 
the while with a majestic patience which 
even such torments could not kill! "Be- 
hold the Man! " 

Let us too behold the Man, the Victim of 
cruelty. The heavenly Father points Him 
out to each of us : the blessed Mother Mary 
shows Him to everyone. Behold the mirror 
of divine justice and mercy and of man's 
ungrateful cruelty! The mirror of God's 
justice ; for it required none less than such 
a Man, the God-Man, in such woe to give the 
reparation demanded by divine justice. 
The mirror of God's mercy; because it was 
for us and in our stead that the Savior bore 
those pangs, and "by his bruises we are 
healed." The mirror of man's ungrateful 
cruelty; for it was man's sins that wrought 



CBUELTY 165 

upon His back and tore His beautiful brow. 

But that cruelty must one day face its 
hour of reckoning; for that Man is the 
Judge who will require His own blood at the 
hands of men on the day of doom. If on 
that day of days men cannot give an account 
of that blood in their regard ; if they stand 
with their souls, which had been washed 
white in that saving flood, defiled with the 
foulness of sin and hardened with the hard 
rebellion of transgression — how will they 
bear the sight of the awful, awful Christ? 
With a fear that shall never die they will 
call upon the mountains to fall upon them 
and the hills to cover them, and will rush 
into the flames of perdition, to escape the 
fire that sears them from the eyes of their 
Judge, terrible in His righteous wrath. 

Behold the Man! It has been said to all 
the generations of men since then, as they 
have filed past that tribune beneath the 
gaze of those blood-dimmed eyes. And 
many have so beheld the Man, that the sight 
has strangled the demon of avarice or lust 
or pride within their souls, and they have 
hailed Him as their King forever. But 
many others have passed Him by, and have 



166 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

given Him no thought — or worse, have 
cried aloud for His death ! Unworthy min- 
isters of the Church have passed Him by, 
as they clutched the money-bags of simony 
and corruption. The rich whom selfishness 
has hardened into stony-hearted egotists, 
have passed Him by, as they spurned the 
poor from their path. The poor whom for- 
getfulness of their thorn-crowned Master 
has maimed, have passed Him by, as they 
railed against God and man and sank down 
into the depths of despair. The votaries of 
fashion and of pleasure whom sensualism 
has corrupted, have passed Him by, and have 
gathered the folds of their silken garments 
closer about them to escape the defilement 
of the dirt and blood of His bruised body; 
aye, they may have cursed Him because His 
bleeding form came between them and the 
object of their lust. 

Let us look long and well at the Victim 
of relentless cruelty and see the work of 
brutality against the Christ. Brutal cru- 
elty! Its evil spirit thrives through the 
centuries: it lives today. Let us learn to 
hate it and keep it from our own lives; let 
us help to lessen its fell results in the lives 



CEUELTY 167 

of others. The cruelty of lust and pride, 
as they work against the Master and against 
the souls of those whom He has ransomed 
with His blood, we have touched upon suf- 
ficiently. But there is, besides, the cruelty 
of avarice and of thoughtless selfishness, and 
it counts its victims amongst individuals 
and nations. 

There's the cruelty of unmercifulness 
towards the poor and helpless, which is heed- 
less of the woes of the little ones of Christ. 
Mercy is a noble attribute of God Himself ; 
it is the most touching perfection of the 
All-High, as He stoops from the height of 
His infinity to the lowliness of our misery : 
and mercy makes of mortals worthy images 
of their Father in heaven. But selfishness 
and whimpering softness may make one so 
wrap himself in indifference towards others, 
that he will not pain his eyes with the sight 
of the sores of Lazarus, nor offend his 
ears with the groans of the soul-piercing 
wretchedness of the oppressed outcasts of 
the race. Such a man does not wish to 
know; he hugs his criminal ignorance, so 
that he may not be disturbed in his com- 
fortable egotism. 



168 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

His extravagant wastefulness might af- 
ford the means of sustenance for many a 
starving wretch. It might turn the wolf 
from the door of some poor girl, fighting 
against the seductions of "the easiest way." 
It might dispel the darkness which hides the 
affection of heaven from many a broken 
spirit, that cannot realize the tender love of 
God, since it has never experienced the true 
love of men. But the unmerciful egotist 
turns away from sights of misery, and asks, 
as Cain dared to ask of the Almighty, "Am I 
my brother's keeper?" * Yes, he is: we all 
are. We are not isolated units in a sepa- 
rated cosmos : we are brothers and sisters, one 
of the other, because we are meant to be the 
brothers and sisters of Christ Jesus. 

The men and women who refuse to open 
the doors of a wide mercy to the burdened 
ones of mankind are hard with the rigidity 
of cruelty. They might, possibly, shrink in 
dismay from the positive infliction of pain ; 
but the quiet permission of sorrows which 
they might banish if they would, the refusal 
to lift the loads which they might lighten if 
they chose — all this, though only negative, 

i Genesis IV, 9. 



CRUELTY 169 

since it consists in not doing, is as real a 
cruelty, as if by their hands the knife were 
twisted in a mortal wound. It kills. 

Moreover, there is a cruelty which sits in 
gilded homes and dares to hold its head high 
among its fellows, hut which positively does 
the work of heartlessness and crushes de- 
fenceless weaklings. Look at the trembling 
old women and stunted girls, sewing 
through the day and into the weary watches 
of the night, stitching, stitching endlessly, 
or driving unresting machines, leaden hour 
after leaden hour, for a pittance to keep the 
soul and body together in the hopeless strug- 
gle against the inevitable end. The sunken 
cheeks of the aged have lost the roses of 
health, and the flaccid faces of the young 
have never known them ; for these wretches 
have been driven by the pitiless lash of the 
''sweating system" into the shadows of deso- 
late despair. But, they have agreed to the 
wage? It is a forced agreement: it is not 
an equal contract : it is a case of trading on 
the crying necessities of others — and this 
is out-and-out injustice. 

Look at the little children, with faces pre- 
maturely old and eyes that have never shone 



170 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

with the glad light of happy childhood — 
little children, bent and broken on the wheel 
of a pagan materialism, destined to be cast 
away on the scrap-heap of useless humanity 
after a few years of enforced child-labor 
have drained their feeble strength. They 
have never a chance to grow and develop 
and blossom from the sweetness of childhood 
into the beauty of maidenhood or the buoy- 
ancy of youth. And why? Because the 
rapacious monster of industrial cruelty 
laughs at souls and buys bodies at the cheap- 
est rate. In many places, the laws of the 
land now forbid such gruesome exploita- 
tion. But, oh ! the cruelty, that should have 
to face prison bars to be kept from crush- 
ing God's children; and which, only too 
often, still finds means to laugh at civil en- 
actments and to wring gold from ruined 
souls and bodies ! 

It is cruelty that makes capital glutton- 
ous: it is cruelty that makes labor incon- 
siderate. Capital will break men, that for- 
tunes may be swelled; it will drain the 
heart's blood of the poor and the widow and 
the orphan, that dividends may be fattened 
and stocks may soar. Labor will stand un- 



CRUELTY 171 

moved by the distressing cry of country in 
the throes of a disastrous conflict, which calls 
for the forgetting of individual grievances ; 
it will drive the knife into the soul of the 
nation, if thus it may reach the heart of its 
hated antagonist. Cruelty has, only too 
often, debased the relation between capital 
and labor to the fierceness of jungle hate; 
it has made uncompromising enemies out 
of those who should be brothers in the work 
to which both contribute in common. And 
the sorry results of this war for wealth 
are like the ruinous effects of the war of 
blood. 

In addition to all this, cruelty has blasted 
the souls of nations. It has done it by the 
adoption of the doctrine of force and the 
philosophy of brute might, which ignores 
the soul and makes of the body the toy of 
superior strength. The ferocity of the 
" superman" grows into the brutality of the 
" superstate." Such a deified monstrosity 
sneers at right as a superstition ; it demands 
that the children of men be fed into the flam- 
ing mouth of Moloch, and that multitudes be 
crushed by the chariot of Juggernaut, in 
order that it may have "a place in the sun," 



172 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

and that its Kultur may enslave a cringing 
world. Men ? They are flies to be crushed 
by the wheel of progress, as a deified State 
rolls on to victory. Families? They are 
but pawns in the great game of conquest. 
Nations f If they are stronger, they are to 
be strangled in the cords of treachery and 
deceit: if they are weaker, they are to be 
scourged and crowned with thorns and 
mocked — for "might is right" ! 

This is not mad fancy. The tear-stained 
faces and wounded hearts of thousands in 
our own land ; the desolated towns and cities 
across the sea; the nameless crosses in the 
shell-riddled fields of Belgium and France, 
mutely speaking to a listening world; the 
shattered manhood and deflowered woman- 
hood of war's unreckoning waste — all these 
are the bitter fruits which grow on the tree 
of cruelty. 

We shall not dwell upon them, lest un- 
christian hate defile the peace of "men of 
good will" and blacken the souls of those 
who are pledged to follow the scourged and 
thorn-crowned King of mankind. Let us 
forget them, if we can. But let us never for- 
get that barbarous cruelty is the mother of 



CRUELTY 173 

evil, just as it is the hateful offspring of lust 
or pride or avarice or selfishness. 

Back before the Christ let us take our 
minds and hearts. Let us look on Him, as 
He stands on the portico of Pilate's palace, 
gazing down at us through the tears and 
blood that dim His tender eyes. He speaks 
to us amid the roar of the hate-maddened 
mob. His very wounds plead with us. 
Shall we close our ears to the caressing call- 
ing of His voiceless words I Shall we turn 
away from the sight of His torn flesh, and 
ruin ourselves by the very sins which He has 
been expiating in the unspeakable sufferings 
of those awful hours'? Again, God forbid! 

If lust calls, may the strength that comes 
from the vision of that lash-cut body, which 
sin has wrought upon, crush the demon in 
our hearts ! May we never be found scourg- 
ing again the God-Man who loved us to the 
end! If pride would lift us up to the "bad 
eminence," whence the fall into the abyss is 
certain, let us not add one thorn to those 
that pierced His throbbing temples. If 
avarice or unmercifulness or barbarity in 
any of its other myriad forms should lure 
us with siren voice away from the path where 



174 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

walk the followers of the Christ, let the 
memory of His anguish-broken Heart, 
yearning for His loved ones, make us too 
big for the meanness of selfishness and too 
high-minded for the degradation of egotism. 
We are the subjects of a King, clad in 
robes of mockery which are reddened with 
the royal crimson of His own blood, 
crowned with the thorns of pain and igno- 
miny — our King, by right divine and by right 
of the conquest of love. And, as we gaze 
upon Him in His majestic misery, as we 
"behold the Man," let our faithful love and 
unswerving loyalty acclaim Him for what 
He is: "Hail, King of truth and holiness 
and love! Hail, King of our souls! Hail, 
King of the world ! Hail, King of this earth 
and of the glorious realms of heaven's bless- 
edness!" In serried ranks before that 
King let us pledge Him our undying fealty, 
as it was pledged for us on the day of our 
baptism when we could not lisp the words; 
and, in the full realization of our duty and 
of His rights, let us say: "We renounce 
Satan and all his works and pomps, and we 
attach ourselves to Jesus Christ forever. ' ' * 

i Baptismal Vows. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PEOPLE AND APOSTASY 

"He came unto his own, and his own received him 
not." John I, 11. 

"But the whole multitude together cried out, say- 
ing: Away with this man, and release unto us Bar- 
abbas. . . . They cried again, saying: Crucify him; 
crucify him." Luke XXIII, 18, 21. 

"But they cried out: Away with him; away with 
him; crucify him. Pilate saith to them: Shall I 
crucify your king? The chief priests answered: We 
have no king but Caesar. ' ' John XIX, 15. 

The climax of evil is the total turning 
away from God, the final and decisive cast- 
ing off of allegiance to Him. It is apostasy. 
All mortal sin is a form of this dereliction of 
bounden and loyal duty ; for such a sin puts 
a creature in the place of the Sovereign 
Lord. But apostasy digs the bottomless 
abyss of complete desertion of the King of 
heaven and earth. Since, in our reflections, 
we have dwelt upon many other sources of 
wickedness, we must not pass by the consid- 

175 



176 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

eration of this poisoned font of transgres- 
sion. 

It was of apostasy in particular that St. 
Paul was speaking, when he said that those 
who are guilty of it crucify again to them- 
selves the Son of God and make Him a 
mockery. 1 All the crimes in the catalogue 
of sin are minor in comparison with this con- 
summated treason, which, even in this life, 
is almost damnation. Ordinarily, the apos- 
tate's fall is irreparable: "when he falls, 
he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again. " 2 
"It is impossible," says the great Apostle — 
that is, it is so hard, and so much against 
what commonly happens, that it may be 
called impossible — "it is impossible for those 
who were once illuminated, have tasted also 
the heavenly gift and were made partakers 
of the Holy Ghost . . . and are fallen away, 
to be renewed again to penance. ' ' 3 

That is the way in which the people, the 
Jewish nation, fell away from God — not al- 
together without hope, but quite beyond the 
reach of anything except the infinite mercy 
of the Almighty. They were apostates. 

i Cf. Heb. VI, 6. 3 Heb. VI, 4, 6. 

2 Henry VIII, Act III, Scene II. 



APOSTASY 177 

And as the other forces of evil had part in 
the tragedy of Calvary, so too did this hor- 
rible apostasy ; and the fallen people of God 
were the embodiment of this disastrous 
agency, which did not die after its fight 
against the Christ, but has gone on through 
the years doing the work of hell. So, let 
us close our work of honest love with the 
consideration of the People and Apostasy. 

The scene of the apostasy of the Jews? 
Tt was the court-yard before the palace of 
Pilate. Out before the eyes of the frantic 
mob the Governor had brought the torn 
Christ. He had pointed out the Master with 
the words, "Behold the Man!" and the peo- 
ple's voice of hate had thundered back the 
cry, "Crucify him!" Pilate had tried to 
reason with the obstinate rioters; but their 
only answer to his urging was, "Let him be 
crucified!" He had again and finally de- 
clared the innocence of the accused ; but the 
Jews had shrieked that the Nazarene must 
die the death, because He was a blasphemer 
who had made Himself the Son of God. At 
these words Pilate had taken the Christ 
within the hall; he had asked Him whence 
He came ; and in fear of condemning one who 



178 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

might be more than man, he had definitely 
made up his mind, that the prisoner must be 
released. But when he was about to an- 
nounce to the crowd this his final verdict, 
they had threatened him with the Emperor's 
displeasure, if he allowed an upstart king to 
play the sovereign beneath the eyes of the 
representative of Rome. 

Pilate was conquered; and he knew it. 
Forgetful of honor; forgetful of the more 
than human majesty of the prisoner; forget- 
ful of the warning of his own wife, who had 
spoken as if from another world and had 
urged him to have naught to do with this 
just man ; * forgetful of all except the lower- 
ing brow of the Caesar across the sea — Pilate 
knew that he was beaten, and that, to save 
himself, he would sentence this Innocent One 
to death. 

But as the realization of his disgraceful 
defeat rushed over his terror-stricken heart, 
his anger against the Jews, who had con- 
quered him, rose to his brain and made him 
cast all caution and restraint to the winds. 
He whipped his conquering enemies with his 
scorn and hatred, and tormented them with 

i Cf. Matt. XXVII, 19. 



APOSTASY 179 

words that stung like lashes and burned like 
fire. He mounted the steps of the judgment- 
seat and ordered Christ to be brought again 
before the sight of all. As the torn and 
bleeding form of the Master appeared, Pilate 
said : ' ' Behold your king ! ' ' Their answer 
was: "Away with him! Away with him! 
Crucify him!" "Shall I crucify your 
king V 1 Pilate too was fierce now. He re- 
peated with taunting glee the insult to their 
pride, and he laughed with bitter scorn, as 
these triumphant foes of his writhed be- 
neath his words. "Your king! Shall I 
crucify your king 1 ' ' And the chief priests, 
as the representatives of the people, and the 
people with them cried out: "We have no 
king but Caesar." 2 That cry shrilled the 
apostasy of the Jews, priests and people, 
from their country, their religion, and their 
God. With those words fell a nation, the 
chosen race of the Most High. 

The Jews had been separated from the 
rest of mankind, to keep alive the memory of 
Him who beneath the shadow of the trees 
of Paradise had been promised to the world. 

i John- XIX, 14, 15. 
2 John XIX, 15. 



180 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

They had been loaded with the choicest 
favors of Almighty God because of their 
special relation to the Messiah. To them 
were made the promises concerning the 
Anointed of the Lord, who was to be of their 
race, flesh of their flesh and bone of their 
bone. 

The Messiah was the centre of their re- 
ligion, the reason of their national existence. 
It was for Him that the prophets had spoken 
their inspired words: it was for Him that 
David and Solomon had raised Israel to the 
height of its glory: it was for Him that 
Jahve deigned to dwell in the gorgeous pile 
of marble and gold, which stood as His tem- 
ple on Mount Moriah. For Him the ages 
had waited: for Him the holy ones had 
prayed and sighed: for Him the noblest of 
human souls had longed, as they pleaded 
with the Lord, that the heavens might rain 
down the Just One and the earth bud forth 
the Savior. 

The Messiah meant all to them; but they 
rejected Him. This rejection was uncon- 
sciously begun upon His appearance on the 
earth, when "he came unto his own and his 
own received him not." It was continued, 



APOSTASY 181 

as they claimed Barabbas as their own in- 
stead of the all-holy God-Man. It had 
grown cruel, when they clamored: "Away 
with this man ! Crucify him ! " It was im- 
piously consummated, when, with the words, 
"We have no king but Cassar," they for- 
mally spurned the kingship of the Messiah 
and the lordship of God Himself. Yes, they 
denied Jahve; they forswore the Expected 
of nations ; they became apostates from God, 
as they made themselves traitors to their 
country. 

Treason to one's country is such a das- 
tardly crime, that the souls of true and noble 
men turn away from the traitor with un- 
speakable loathing; and the minds of the 
most tender-hearted admit, that the greatest 
punishment in the keeping of society is the 
just meed of such an ingrate and pervert. 
But, vile as is the treachery to one's land, and 
deserving as the guilty is of the severest 
chastisement; the enormity of apostasy is 
more heinous still and the penalty which it 
merits is more dreadful, by as much as God 
is more worthy than country itself of our 
souls' whole allegiance and our hearts' best 
love. 



182 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

Would to God, that apostasy had ceased 
on that day, when it wrought its will on the 
Christ in the hour of evil and the power of 
darkness ! * But it did not die then. It 
has lived on, doing the work of destruction. 
It is doing it to-day in individuals and na- 
tions. 

How many men and women have turned 
their backs on God! Reference is here 
made, not only to the equivalent apostasy 
(which is also equivalent idolatry) of every 
mortal sin, but to the formal apostasy of 
those who have thrown off allegiance to God 
by an explicit rejection of all religion. 
"Tainted money" was the reason with some ; 
for the} r could not keep it in their itching 
palms, unless they forswore God — and they 
cast Him aside. Forbidden lustful fascina- 
tion, which was lyingly called love, was the 
cause why others abandoned Him ; for they 
would not own a lash-torn, thorn-crowned, 
blood-mantled King, who dared to say: 
"If any man will come after me, let him 
deny himself, and take up his cross, and fol- 
low me. ' ' 2 Unbounded pride was the step 

i Cf. Luke XXII, 53. 
2 Matt. XVI, 24. 



APOSTASY 183 

on which many others slipped; for they 
would brook no restraint and no correction, 
even by the accredited ministers of the Lord. 

Apostasy ? Oh, it is no myth ! Have we 
not known those who broke off all connection 
with Mother Church for causes which ap- 
peared big to pampered selfishness, but 
which were lighter than chaff when weighed 
in the balance of God's unfailing truth? 
And, let it be noted well, apostasy from 
God's Church is apostasy from God Him- 
self. The Blessed Master said to the Apos- 
tles, who were to be the Church that was to 
continue His work: "He that heareth 
you, heareth me, and he that despiseth you, 
despiseth me. And he that despiseth me, 
despiseth him that sent me. ' ' * Yes, an 
apostate from the Church is an apostate 
from Christ; and an apostate from Christ 
is an apostate from the great God. 

Yet the heart of Mother Church, as the 
big, fatherly heart of the Eternal, has been 
saddened by many such defections. Mere 
words'? No: solid facts! What of those 
who disdainfully brave the thunderbolts of 
the Church's excommunication, because, to 

i Luke X, 16. 



184 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

the peril and loss of faith and purity, they 
know better than she what they ought to 
read? or because they think more of the 
supposed temporal advantages of con- 
demned secret societies, than of the good will 
of God Himself? What of those, who not 
only disregard, but arrogantly and supercil- 
iously sneer at the insufferable intrusion ( !) 
of the Church that dares to legislate 
with regard to marriage, and to safeguard 
her children and her children's children 
from indifference to the faith, aye, the abso- 
lute destruction of the faith, which cost 
Christ His cross? What of those who, 
against the right of the little ones of the 
Master and the formal and solemn prohibi- 
tion of Christ's Spouse, deprive their chil- 
dren of their heaven-given dower of a 
Christian education ? 

May God keep us from the first steps in 
the way that leads to entire apostasy from 
the Church! Let us glory in the sacred 
privilege, granted to us above so many mil- 
lions, of being the children of the one true 
Church of the Master. We are chosen ones, 
more than the Jews were. Let us not cast 
away our hallowed prerogative. A child of 



APOSTASY 185 

the Church ! A son or daughter of her who 
has walked unconquered down the centuries, 
with her head held high before the face of 
God, scattering spiritual blessings on the 
souls of men, and in the plenitude of her 
tender affection, like the boundless love of 
her Bridegroom, easing the sorrows of 
earth, spreading the good things of Chris- 
tian civilization! How it should thrill our 
very souls ! 

We owe no apology to the world for the 
fact that we are Catholics : we need plead for 
no sufferance from a disdaining multitude. 
We are the children of the saints. We are 
the offspring of the Bride of Christ — and 
heaven forbid, that we should ever be 
ashamed of that Mother! There are those 
who are. There are those who are quite 
willing deploringly to admit to those who 
carp, that it is too bad that the Church is not 
a little more broad-minded in many things ; 
that it is unfortunate that she should insist 
upon such dead things as dogmas, when all 
that the world needs is a little considerate 
stretching of doctrine to accommodate the 
modern spirit; that it is regrettable that 
her principles, which offend a progressive 



186 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

and cultured part of the "best people," 
should be paraded before scandalized eyes. 
Alas! it is but the echo of the cry of that 
first Good Friday, "Away with this man! 
We have no king but Caesar !" 

Nor are individuals the only ones whose 
souls have been blasted by apostasy. Na- 
tions too have been guilty of social derelic- 
tion of the Church, of Christ, of God. Let 
the words of the Master to His Church be 
remembered: "He that heareth you, hear- 
eth me, and he that despiseth you, despiseth 
me : and he that despiseth me, despiseth him 
that sent me." 1 Time was when the na- 
tions, as nations, recognized the sovereignty 
of Christ and the position of His one true 
Church; but today few are the nations, 
which as such cleave to that holy Mother 
and to her Spouse. "Governments, as gov- 
ernments are organized today, know very 
little of God." 2 

This sad havoc, whose effects are with us 
now, was not wrought in a day. There were 
smaller storms of this evil, when the Eastern 
Schism disturbed the tranquil peace of 

i Luke X, 16. 

2 P. L. Blakely, S. J., in America, Jan. 11, 1919. 



APOSTASY 187 

Christendom ; but the full tempest of black 
horror burst upon the world in the revolt 
of the sixteenth century. Then whole na- 
tions, in their governments and in large 
numbers of their members, turned their 
backs upon the Church of the Master and 
clamored for her death, whilst at the same 
time they echoed the cry of the Jews, "We 
have no king but Caesar." For, from parts 
of the universal Church, the Catholic 
Church, they fashioned distinct, national 
churches, subservient to the State — and 
turned away from Christ. 

And farther and farther the ghastly evil 
spread in the separated bodies. Having de- 
spised the Church, they came to despise 
Christ and His heavenly Father. Thus, the 
seventeenth century saw the apostasy that 
came from deism, which began with the re- 
jection of God's special providence over the 
world and ended in scepticism. The eight- 
eenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed the 
apostasy that came from materialism and 
rationalism, which went to the lengths of 
atheism and its sister, pantheism. They 
were sowing the storm, and they reaped the 
whirlwind in the twentieth century, when a 



188 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

pagan Kultur assaulted the very foundations 
of civilization. 

The steps are not hard to trace, if only we 
open our eyes. Spurning the Church, they 
spurned her Founder, and despising Him, 
they despised Him who sent Him. Then 
from ignoring God they came to adore them- 
selves; and the blinded adherents of a dei- 
fied State- bowed down before it as the source 
of all rights and the end of all endeavors. 
State-idolatry inevitably leads to the false 
and pernicious notion that the citizen "be- 
longs" to the State, that the State is not for 
him, but that he is for the State. And the 
outcome of all this? Paternal absolutism, 
on the one hand ; and, on the other, the hor- 
rors "which the tribe of eugenists amongst 
us have borrowed from paganism and the 
methods of the stock-yard. ' ' x 

If this old world of ours is not altogether 
in ruins, it is not from anything that came 
from the saving spirit of this unhallowed 
apostasy; but because of the principles of 
truth and uprightness, which were living in 
the souls of the better ones of mankind, pre- 
served by God's providence and especially 

i Joseph Keating, S. J., in The Month, Dec, 1918, p. 467. 



APOSTASY 189 

by the watchful guardianship of the dear old 
Church. 

But ruins are there, and the cause of the 
ruins is lurking in the black background. 
As we face the problem of reconstruction, 
let us learn the lessons of the past. As far 
as we may, let us undo the evils that have 
come from the apostasy of the nations. 

The peoples of the earth, in their social 
organization, are bound to render social 
homage to the God on whom they depend. 
This is as true as it is that the individual 
man must worship the Deity from whom he 
has his being. Nations exist by the will of 
God ; the authority by which they work out 
their destiny is from Him: and therefore 
they lie under the obligation to express their 
dependence upon Him and upon His 
Christ. By right divine and by right of the 
conquest of Calvary our Blessed Lord is 
King of the world and has a right to social 
sovereignty over the nations. His desire, 
His solemn will is that there should be but 
one fold and one shepherd for the spiritual 
regeneration of mankind. This will of His 
was realized before the apostasy of the na- 
tions: it can never be realized again, until 



190 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

Christ has triumphed in individual souls and 
in families, which are the units of so- 
ciety. After that, He will reign gloriously 
and victoriously over the peoples of the 
world. 

Today that triumph of His is not yet 
complete : and so, as things stand in the di- 
vided religious world, there must be some 
sort of separation between Church and 
State. This is not the ideal condition: it 
is not what Christ longs for. Yet, if it 
must be, in heaven's name let it be a separa- 
tion which includes reverence for God and 
respect for the sanctity of the individual 
conscience, not the propaganda of atheism 
or of ungodly cult : let it be the separation 
that exists here in our own loved land, not 
the farce of separation, which is but a 
thinly disguised persecution, as in Mexico 
and France. 

Mexico reveled in a debauchery of rob- 
bery of churches and in a riot of sacrilegious 
oppression of the children of Christ's 
Spouse. France denied to her religious the 
right, which was theirs as citizens of the 
republic, to organize and associate. She 
banished them from their country; but she 



APOSTASY 191 

summoned them back to fight, when her 
existence was endangered. They were 
slanderously named a menace to the State 
because of their loyal allegiance to the 
Church and to God ; but, because of this loyal 
allegiance, when their country called they 
served the State as none others did. The 
record of one religious order shows, that of 
its men called to arms ninety-three per cent, 
won decorations for distinguished service 
and heroic bravery. 1 Yes, their record and 
that of others, from the soldier priests and 
the heroic sisters to the brave Catholic youth 
of France and to Foch, "the gray man of 
Christ," gave the same answer as that 
thrown into the faces of the bigots in our 
own country: that fidelity to Christ and to 

iThe Society of Jesus. The Queen's Work (cf. April, 1919, 
p. 86 ) , commenting on this fact, quotes the following from 
the Cincinnati Enquirer: "Hear the record" (of the French 
Jesuits). "When France declared war approximately seven 
hundred and fifty Jesuits of French citizenship were called to 
the colors from all over the earth, because they are great 
missionaries. Only a few, less than fifteen, became chaplains. 
The remainder donned the uniform of the fighting unit. Of 
the entire number 112 were killed, 48 wounded, and 20 cap- 
tured by the Germans, a mortality of fifteen per cent. But 
this is not all. No less than 490 of the 528 survivors have 
been decorated or cited for distinction in orders, many nations 
joining in the awards of insignia of bravery. Taken as a 
whole, this record is little short of marvelous." 



192 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

His Church makes for the truest and deep- 
est patriotism. 

Religious social unity is the will of the 
Redeemer of mankind. If we cannot have 
this social religious unity now, we can at 
least, in our efforts at reconstruction, build 
on the solid foundation of Christian prin- 
ciples; and we must do so, because for na- 
tions, as for men, " there is no other name 
under heaven whereby we must be saved," * 
not only for eternity, but for time, than the 
name of the Lord Jesus. 

"We are facing a future, in which it is 
hoped that the League of Nations will make 
of red-handed war as much of an impossibil- 
ity as may be possible. A noble hope ! But 
that league, even though possessing the 
strong right arm of might (which we pray 
may never have to be called into action), 
must rest upon the moral law of God, if it 
is to continue in existence and in effective 
work towards a longed-for end. To prevent 
war and to insure the continuance of peace, 
overreaching ambitions must be restrained ; 
and restrained they cannot be, unless God 
reigns in acknowledged sovereignty over the 

lActs IV, 12. 



APOSTASY 193 

peoples of the world. "It was the spirit 
embodied in the Prussian War-Lords, the 
anti-Christian ethic that sets the State above 
God and puts national interest before just 
dealing, that brought about the holocaust" 1 
of the world-struggle which crucified the na- 
tions. And if the peoples of the earth shriek 
their apostasy from God in the cry of the 
Jews, "We have no king but Caesar," the 
war beast will not have been killed, but will 
nurse its hurts until it is strong enough to 
rend again a helpless universe. 

As from the battle-scarred lands across 
the sea we turn our eyes to our own shores, 
we must realize that a work of rebuilding 
must be done at home. The social fabric 
of the nation is endangered by economic 
evils which clamor for redress. The de- 
structive war between capital and labor 
must not go on ; the causes of that struggle 
must not be allowed to sap the strength of 
the country, if we are to endure. None but 
the wilfully blind can fail to see that there 
are glaring and deplorable inequalities, in 
violation of the principles of right and jus- 
tice ; and these must be remedied. Men can- 

iThe Month, 1. c, p. 461. 



194 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

not be treated like machines, without an in- 
evitable revolt. On the other hand, ex- 
travagant demands, backed up by the threat 
of violence, cannot found a lasting peace be- 
tween antagonists. Nay, if the forces re- 
main antagonistic, instead of becoming allies 
and brothers, the fires of the volcano are but 
smothered for a time, and are gathering 
strength to break out in a fearful eruption. 
Unquestionably there are abuses; and 
Bolshevism is exploiting them, and is 
clamoring for recognition because of them. 
These abuses must be removed; and they 
can be removed — though not by Bolshevism. 
The unjust inequalities are irremovable only 
"if there is no moral law and no God of 
justice behind the law." 1 Human legisla- 
tion can and should help to do away with 
the iniquitous exploitation of men by men; 
but human legislation is not enough. For, 
"human selfishness cannot be effectually re- 
strained except by God's commandments and 
their sanction." 2 So long as the apostasy 
from God lasts there can be no permanent 

i The Month, 1. c, p. 464. 
2 Id. ib. 



APOSTASY 195 

and stable rebuilding along the lines of 
economic reform. 

Again, in the work of reconstruction many 
are calling attention to the need of reforma- 
tion in educational efforts. Urgently and 
imperatively is reform called for, though not 
chiefly in the way proposed by most of its 
champions. The reform must be away from 
the apostasy from God, that stains the edu- 
cation of most of the schools of our land. 
Quite generally education is divorced from 
religion and from God. Now, right here 
is the place where reform must begin. Not 
Catholics alone, but many clear-sighted 
thinkers of other creeds have come to see the 
absolute necessity of a change in this regard, 
if our country is to be safe. 

Some of the evils arising from this 
apostasy in educational matters have been 
mitigated by the fealty to God which is the 
life-breath of Catholic heroism for religious 
education. This has directly counteracted 
some of the disastrous effects of godless 
training; and it has indirectly helped 
towards good by its practical protest against 
a perversion of education into an ignomini- 



196 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

ous instrument for turning out mere money- 
making machines. 

Without a doubt, reform is needed; but 
emphatically it is not to be accomplished by 
binding all educational agencies in the 
servile chains of an official bureaucracy, 
which would grind out of existence the only 
schools that are sowing the seeds of the 
harvest of national salvation. Several 
measures, lately proposed before State or 
national legislatures, are more than danger- 
ous. 1 They are fatal ; for they would mean 
"the complete triumph of education with- 
out God." 2 

As we love God and cherish our country, 
we must see to it, that the most American 
of all the schools of our land be not strangled 
by unjust discrimination. The Catholic 
parochial schools and Colleges and Universi- 
ties, and similar schools of the Lutherans, 
the EjDiscopalians, and the like, are the most 
American schools to be found from ocean to 
ocean; because they alone are founded on 

i Reference is made to measures like the Smith Bill, intro- 
duced into the Senate in October, 1918, withdrawn in Feb- 
ruary, 1919, and again presented in another form (in the 
House and Senate) in May, 1919. 

2Cf. P. L. Blakely, S. J., in America, Jan. 11, 1919. 



APOSTASY 197 

the principles of religion, of Christianity — 
and our nation is a religious, a Christian na- 
tion. These religious schools must be un- 
hampered in their work of spiritual and 
moral development of each future citizen 
of the commonwealth ; "they are part of our 
contribution as Americans to the true pros- 
perity of our beloved country, and the monu- 
ment which we raise to the glory of the one 
true God." 1 

We cannot do without God in our train- 
ing for life, any more than we can do with- 
out Him in life itself or in the death that 
will close our earthly days. If we try to 
do without Him, we shall meet the fate of 
the apostates before Pilate's judgment- 
seat. For the Jews, since that fateful day, 
there has been no nation, no church, no 
country. A people without all these they 
are, because they threw away their allegi- 
ance to their God, when they shrieked, "We 
have no king but Caesar. ' ' Away, then, with 
the apostasy of men and nations ! Back to 
God and to fidelity to Christ ! 

In this return and in this fidelity, the 
splendidly magnificent example of the 

i Id. ib. 



198 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

Master is our encouragement and our 
strength. Fealty to His Father— that was 
His glory. So His prophet had proclaimed 
in His name: so He Himself declared: so 
His Apostle Paul affirmed of Him, when he 
said: "Wherefore when he cometh into the 
world he saith: Sacrifice and oblation thou 
wouldst not . . . holocausts for sin did not 
please thee. Then said I: Behold I come 
. . . that I should do thy will, O God." 1 
To do the will of the Father had been to Him 
as the staff of life. But His work accord- 
ing to that will was not yet done, His sacri- 
fice was not yet accomplished; for the will 
of His Father led on to Calvary's hill. 

When the Jews' words of apostasy had 
crashed through the air, they had stunned 
Pilate's soul with the realization of the ful- 
ness of his utter failure. To make a quick 
end of the whole wretched business, from the 
judgment-seat he uttered the traditional 
words of sentence, "Ibis ad crucem," "Thou 
shalt go to the cross." The cross! The last 
scene of the tragedy of the world was about 
to be enacted. During it let us keep close 

lHeb. X, 5-7. 



APOSTASY 199 

by Christ's side: let us follaw Him to the 
end, whilst He undoes the work of apostasy 
and shows us the heroism of fidelity unto 
death, even the death of the cross. 

When Pilate speaks the words of doom, 
it is near midday of that Friday which will 
live forever. At once the cross is brought 
forth — that cross which has cast its shadow 
over the crib of Bethlehem, which has stood 
out before Jesus in the days of Egypt and 
Nazareth, which has beckoned to Him and 
called with the caressing voice of a beloved 
during the days of the public ministry — 
that cross which is to be His death-bed and 
the throne from which He will reign for- 
ever. Whilst the executioners lay rough 
hands upon Him to tear away the robe of 
mockery and toss His own garments about 
His lashed body, an officer steps up to the 
Procurator with the tablet of wood, which 
is to be carried before the condemned and 
afterwards fixed to the cross to proclaim the 
crime for which He suffers. What shall the 
title be? "Write," says Pilate, "Jesus of 
Nazareth, the King of the Jews." 1 And 

i Cf. John XIX, 19. 



200 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

upon the white surface of the tablet, in 
letters of red the scribe traces these words 
in Latin and Greek and Hebrew. 

The signal is given; the cross is laid on 
Jesus ; and the procession starts on its way. 
Out into the roadway sways the mob of 
priests and people; the centurion and the 
soldiers close in around the condemned ; and 
they move forward. The Master's hands 
no longer bear the sceptre of scorn, but hold 
the cross which lies upon His mangled 
shoulders. Upon His head there rests that 
crown of ignominy, that helmet of pain, 
which pierces Him with its thorny sharp- 
ness. Over His face there drips the flow of 
blood from that crown, there trickles the 
vileness of the spittle of the soldier mob. 
As the sad cortege moves on its way, disquiet 
is felt in the very air ; the clouds roll up from 
the horizon; a palpable gloom is settling 
down over the city and its environs; the 
flashing of jagged lightning is answered by 
the rumbling of distant thunder; and the 
ground is moving uneasily in the first throes 
of the coming earthquake. 

Poor, lonely, suffering Christ! Around 
Him, as He stumbles on, are faces distorted 



APOSTASY 201 

with contempt and scorn and hatred; lips 
that vomit forth curses and revilings; 
blood-maddened, hell-possessed hearts that 
exult in His doom. No one to care for 
Him! None? Yes, thank God! there are 
some few. The devoted women lament over 
Him. His sorrow-stricken Mother meets 
Him, with the incarnation of love speaking 
from her tear-dimmed eyes and the heroism 
of martyr-sacrifice throbbing in her riven 
heart. Yet — but a long, lingering look, and 
the Savior totters on. 

Out through the western gate He takes 
His way, stumbling, fainting, falling be- 
neath the cross. On again, with the cross 
blessing the shoulders of Simon of Cyrene, 
till the sheer front of the rock of Calvary 
blocks the way. They turn aside to the west 
(the fosse where the crosses will later be cast 
lies to the east) , and they come by the north 
to the rocky plateau which bears the name 
of Golgotha. There Christ falls, embracing 
the altar of His sacrifice. 

The soldiers lose no time, but go on to the 
completion of their gruesome work. For 
the last time our dear Lord's garments are 
jerked from His lacerated flesh, and He is 



202 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

placed upon the cross. He nerves Himself 
for the coming crisis: His tight-drawn lips 
are compressed with the resolution of hero- 
ism, and perhaps again they whisper, 
"Father, thy will be done!" A large nail, 
three or four inches long, is placed against 
the right palm, and with a few strong blows 
is driven home to the hard wood, tearing 
its way through flesh and nerve and sinew. 
The fingers close convulsively about the 
cruel iron, and the blood trickles down upon 
the rock beneath. Another nail tears its 
way through the left hand; two more, 
through the throbbing feet— and He is fixed 
fast to the rood. His chest expands in a 
spasmodic effort to get more air; a quiver- 
ing shudder passes through His frame, from 
the thorn-crowned head, through the ex- 
tended arms and gashed trunk, down to the 
feet that press in agony against the hard 
wood. And so— Father in heaven! so, they 
crucify Him! 

Through the angry mutterings of the 
thunder, through His foes' exultant shouts 
of demoniac triumph, we catch the sound 
of His trembling voice. "Father," He 
says, "Father, forgive them; for they know 



APOSTASY 203 

not what they do" ; 1 and we learn the sacred- 
ness of forgiving love and the heinousness of 
bitter unforgiveness. Again He speaks. 
It is to the repentant thief on His right 
hand: and in answer to the prayer for a 
little thought when the Lord shall have come 
into His kingdom, He promises to the out- 
cast the joys of heaven on that very day. 
"Amen, I say to thee: this day thou shalt 
be with me in Paradise. ' ' 2 

Down the hillside and back to the city 
frightened throngs are hurrying through the 
unnatural darkness. They are casting ter- 
rified glances back at the cross, which stands 
out against the lurid blackness of angry 
skies: they are gasping with fear, lest the 
curse of God has fallen upon them. And 
now, nearer to the cross comes the group 
of the dying Savior's loved ones — and with 
them, Mary His Mother. For, "there stood 
by the cross of Jesus his Mother." 3 

But, oh ! the sorrow of His desolate heart, 
the anguish of her sword-pierced soul! 
Mary looks up at that form that hangs be- 

iLuke XXIII, 34. 
2 Luke XXIII, 43. 
s John XIX, 25. 



204 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

fore her, mangled, bruised, crushed, gashed, 
bloody. And Bethlehem rises before her, 
with the sweetness of His baby love, the 
beauty of His baby face, the caresses and 
clingings of His baby hands. Egypt and 
Nazareth come back to her, with the beloved 
intimacy between Mother and Boy. That 
head, torn with the thorny crown, has rested 
on her breast: those hands, dug with the 
nails, have clung to her and blessed her: 
those lips, swollen and discolored, have 
kissed her and called her by the sacred name 
of mother. Oh, Father! why have men 
treated Him so? Why "have they dug His 
hands and His feet and numbered all His 
bones?" 1 

In the fulness of His love for her, the 
virgin Christ gives His Virgin Mother to 
the virgin Apostle John. And now, it seems 
that even she is gone from Him, and He has 
nothing left on earth. No help, no solace, 
no comfort! 

So, He turns His blood-dimmed eyes to 
heaven and looks up to His Father. But 
there is no help even there! for He is cov- 
ered with the sins of the world, an outcast, 

i Cf. Ps. XXI, 17. 



APOSTASY 205 

the object of anger in His Father's sight. 
And as He turns away His weary eyes, the 
heart-breaking thought appalls Him, that 
He is alone, all alone with sin. And up 
from the bleeding heart, out of the anguished 
soul, through the pale and swollen lips comes 
the cry, which speaks of an agony as close 
to the pains of hell as a human soul could 
go without despair: "My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me!" 1 May God 
forgive us that awful pain, which we caused 
the dying Christ! For, His soul-tearing 
dereliction is the price of expiation for our 
abandonment of God, when we turned away 
from Him and made some vile satisfaction 
the god of our being. May the woe of our 
forsaken Master warm our souls to love 
and keep us true to Him forevermore! 

We are gazing at the beginning of the end. 
Christ's cry, "I thirst," 2 tells of the unbear- 
able pangs of the bodily thirst which has 
burned up His veins from the loss of blood 
and has flamed up from His untended 
wounds. But, more eloquently still, it 
speaks of His yearning for our nearness and 

i Matt. XXVII, 46. 
2 John XIX, 28. 



206 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

our love, which He craves and which (please 
God!) we shall not refuse. 

The dying Savior looks back over the 
long line of prophecies about Himself, and 
sees that they are all fulfilled. He has done 
the work which the Father has given Him 
to do : He has accomplished all but the last 
detail of the atonement, demanded by God's 
justice. The agony in the garden, the in- 
justice of the mock trials, the tortures of the 
bloody outrages at the hands of the soldiers, 
the rejection by His people, the weary way 
of the cross, the endless pains of the three 
hours, hanging on His pierced hands and 
f ee t_all these are past. And from His 
heart well up the words of triumph, "It is 
consummated." * 

Faithful unto death, even the death of the 
cross! He has only to lay down His life, 
and His sacrifice of redemption will be ac- 
complished. He has taught us how to live : 
now He will show us how to die. The sun 
is darkened; the thunder mutters; the 
ground rocks and sways in the throes of the 
earthquake; all nature is shaken, as if 
caught in the agonies of a death-struggle. 

i John XIX, 30. 



APOSTASY 207 

And in the midst of it all the dying Master 
is calm. The agony of dereliction is gone ; 
the Father's anger is passing away. Back 
of the Father's wrath the well-beloved Son 
sees the smile of love upon His Father's 
face — and He will go to Him. Not with the 
weakness of a man done to his death, but 
with the strength of the Master of life and 
death, He will lay down His life when He 
wills it. With His last breath He will again 
proclaim His divine Sonship and the mutual 
love between His Father and Himself. 
"Father," He cries, " Father, into thy hands 
I commend my spirit." 1 And a smile 
comes over the haggard features, like the 
first gleam of a rainbow after a storm. 
" Father!" Like a tired child, falling 
asleep in its father's arms, the dear Christ 
bows His thorn-crowned head upon His 
gashed bosom; His sacred, blood-dimmed 
eyes close to the things of earth; a gasp 
comes from His heaving breast; a shudder 
passes over His mangled frame — and He is 
still, oh! so still! And he gives up the 
ghost. 
Yes, it is over. He is dead. Jesus 

i Luke XXIII, 46. 



208 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

Christ, the Son of God, is dead; and the 
great High Priest of mankind has ' ' entered 
. . . into the holies, having obtained eternal 
redemption. ' ' x He has triumphed over dis- 
loyalty and duplicity and time-serving and 
lust and cruelty and apostasy. He has con- 
quered, not only for Himself, but for His 
followers, if they will follow Him. And by 
His tremendous oblation He has won for 
them the strength to follow, so that they 
may form part of that great army which 
will stand by Him under the standard of the 
cross, when He delivers up the Kingdom to 
the Father. 2 

Amid the black clouds which lower over 
the hill, amid the convulsions of nature 
which split the rock of Calvary beneath our 
feet and rend the veil of the temple back in 
the darkened city, that did not "know the 
time of its visitation, " 3 a calm gleam of 
light illumines that figure on the cross. In 
the splendor of that light our vision goes 
back to Bethlehem, where the angels sang 
in the starry night: "Glory to God in the 

i Heb. IX, 12. 

2 Cf. I Cor. XV, 24. 

3 Luke XIX, 44. 



APOSTASY 209 

highest and on earth peace to men of good 
will. ' ' x That glory has been given and that 
peace has been won by the Master, dead upon 
the cross. 

Down the future our vision leaps, and sees 
the white-robed army of the martyrs, who 
from the cross will gather the courage to 
face the wild beasts of the arena and the 
fiercer cruelty of tiger-hearted men. We 
see the crowded ranks of confessors and 
virgins, who will give Christ their all, and 
will live for Him — which is sometimes 
harder than to die for Him. We see the 
heroes and heroines, who in the might of the 
Crucified will turn away from the joys of 
earth, to minister to God's abandoned ones, 
to bring them to their blood-mantled Lover, 
and to keep them with Him. We see the 
millions, who through Him will be stronger 
than the false splendor of earthly pomp and 
the seductions of fleshly indulgence and the 
degradation of worldly pride. 

And on and on our vision sweeps, until it 
pierces the veil of eternity, and we behold 
the glory of the "Lamb that was slain" and 

iLuke II, 14. 



210 THE UNDYING TRAGEDY 

is "worthy to receive power and divinity 
and wisdom and strength and honor and 
glory and benediction," 1 and we glimpse 
the radiance of the sons and daughters of 
men, become forever the children of God, 
bought back from their doom, and made the 
"heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ." 
And as the beauty of the vision thrills our 
heart of hearts, we bow down before the 
Victim of sin and the Victim of love, and 
we say: "We adore thee, O Christ, and we 
bless thee, because by thy cross thou hast re- 
deemed the world. " 3 

i Apoc. V, 12. 

2 Rom. VIII, 17. 

3 The Roman Breviary : Feast of Finding of the Holy Cross, 

Noct. II. 



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